Navigating modern workplace culture with modern knowledge management solutions

As the global pandemic has reshaped workplace culture, organizations are more than ever responsible for adapting to and accommodating the needs of their employees for positive business performance outcomes. This is, indeed, a hefty and complex task to take on for any enterprise, of any scale; managing employee and employer experience, amidst large age-gaps and accompanying workplace attitudes, makes for an overwhelming and dissonant culture alignment process.

KMWorld recently held a webinar, “How Gainwell Modernized Their Knowledge Management to Increase Productivity,” sponsored by Bloomfire and featuring speakers Emma Galdo, director of customer success at Bloomfire, and Joe Carruth, business analyst at Gainwell Technologies, considers modernized knowledge management to be at the core of these workplace environment challenges.

According to Galdo, knowledge management, and a modernized approach towards it, is necessary for a workplace environment to be conducive of positive employee experience, and in turn, positive business outcomes. As perpetuated long before the pandemic, employee expectations are rising, closing in on the boundaries between personal lives and work. Surprising to no one, these expectations, coupled with the pandemic’s massive change in how work is conducted, facilitated scattered teams with equally scattered tools and platforms, unable or unwilling to effectively communicate and collaborate. This resulted in a blow to enterprise performance—creating a desperate need for a solution.

According to reports from McKinsey, 20% of an average employee’s time is absorbed by the action of looking for information; cumulatively, that results in 47.5 days per year and $6,000 of lost productivity per employee. In comparison, companies who relied on data and knowledge in their decision making were 2.8x more likely to report double-digit year-over-year growth, and 1.3x more likely to report increased Customer Lifetime Value, according to a report by Forrestor. Through these data points, Galdo explained that the need for modernized knowledge management solutions are more important than ever, asserting that knowledge access and sharing is the bridge between employee, employer, and customer.

Implementing knowledge programs is not necessarily a simple, one-and-done task, said Galdo. In fact, knowledge programs need continuous TLC and reporting systems to reach their full potential. Incorporating knowledge programs means incorporating a new workplace culture, affecting the employee experience. If done well, enterprises can see an improvement to employee retention as well as productivity. It is vital, though, to encourage a safe psychological environment for modernized knowledge management to work effectively; employees must feel that the environment is safe enough to share feedback and knowledge in order to do so at all. Sharing knowledge across teams brings together valuable perspectives and approaches that might otherwise be siloed, diminishing business outcomes.

Galdo explored a knowledge management action plan that can invite a collaborative workplace through knowledge sharing and effective knowledge engagement emphasis. She emphasized the importance of getting stakeholders and other vital entities involved with the knowledge program implementation at the very beginning; as a result, they will feel involved, increasing buy-in chances. The next step is creating a results accelerator team, responsible for collectively solving organization-wide inefficiencies; their work empowers stakeholders to engage in the process of knowledge sharing to see direct changes, and simultaneously, direct business outcomes. Educating and communicating about the value of knowledge engagement is a large focal point for Galdo’s argument, highlighting that effective buy-in must be continuous and facilitated by real case studies and data points that illustrate the effectiveness of the knowledge program within that organization. Gathering and acting on feedback creates psychologically safe environments, where users should feel heard and encouraged to provide feedback. Lastly, a routine of regularly checking-in on the program is required for it to actively serve an organization; Galdo emphasized that it should evolve as the needs of your employees evolve, as the organization evolves.

Carruth provided real evidence of modernized knowledge management programs through the efforts made by Gainwell to support the modern workplace environment and its employees. The dichotomy between new-hires and long-tenured employees—that aforementioned employee age-gap—is a key point to implementing knowledge programs. While new-hires are typically eager to share knowledge and can influence other employees to embrace new programs, long-tenured employees tend to be stubborn and technologically averse to changes.

Gainwell’s knowledge solution, Genius, is a dynamic platform built to share trusted information, collaborate, and leverage best practices across accounts, displaying the results of effective knowledge management and engagement program implementation. New-hires readily adopt the program and empower employees to self-serve through clear onboarding documentation and how-to videos, while long-tenured employees benefit from its intuitive and easy-to-use interface that does not require a level of tech-savviness.

Programs such as Genius, paired with Galdo’s thorough research of effective knowledge management practices, dictate the future of workplace environments that empower all internal entities to share, collaborate, and boost business performance.

You can view an archived version of this webinar here.