If you want to advance in your career, learning new and ancillary skills to your job is invaluable. Employees and companies that put value in skill sharing by harnessing the collective knowledge of their staff are stronger and typically more successful. Why? Knowledge management is highly overlooked. At any one time, there are 20+ people walking around the office with skills that could benefit others in the office.
So, what can you do to make sure that you are in a knowledge and skill sharing workplace?
Make It So
You can’t suddenly ask all of the teams or the people to share what they know because no one knows who knows what. The foundations need to be set in order to make it work. And some of the most skilled people in your company might be shy when it comes to public speaking or communicating in groups.
So, to make it happen, you’re going to need to nominate a facilitator (they’ll need facilitator training to really make an impact). Create a good space for skill sharing – somewhere comfortable and open. And, start to look at setting a weekly slot where people can turn up with questions or with knowledge. But go further and give people the ability to pin things on boards where others can read and learn.
Reward It
While there is a clear reward for the company if people start sharing their skills because your teams will be multi-talented, and all of those skills will go right back into making the company money – what does the person get? If someone takes time to share some cool coding or some neat marketing, what do they get? Some people will want to do it for recognition; others will want some external motivators.
Consider what you are willing to give them in terms of rewards for doing this work.
Barriers
Communication is typically one of the most difficult barriers for different teams to overcome. The sales team might be filled with a specific personality type. While your legal or developers might have another. It’s not that they can’t communicate, but they might need some help.
To break down barriers like this, be sure that there are some or go to events or times where the whole of the office is invited and can just hang out. This breaks down the barriers that often happen in the workplace and leads to a healthier environment overall.
Tools
If you are the employee, you are busy. The people above you in the chain are busy, and the teams are busy. At one time, your company is handling multiple projects – and making time can be tricky. There are many tools that you can use to help as a knowledge-sharing base. All of the standard options, like Slack and MS Teams, are fine, but Trello can be a great option. People can drop questions, set up chats, or add new knowledge to the board.
If you are the employer, knowledge sharing in the workplace creates teams that are highly skilled and people you will want to keep. As the saying goes, what if you train employees and they leave? But what if you don’t train them and they stay? Great businesses need to have great teams to push them forward, but they aren’t the only ingredient for success: Five Steps To Running A Successful Business.
So which ever end of the spectrum you fall, whether it’s the employer or employee, remember the phrase “sharing is caring” and in workforce it also means advancing!
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