Empowering Your Mobile Workforce Using Knowledge Management
As the workforce trends towards a gig economy—where younger generations may hold several different jobs, such as consulting, blogging and more contract-based work—organizations are challenged with managing and equipping their workforce with the proper knowledge to get the job done. Because employees may not work directly for an organization or may be remote, it is often hard for them to access the knowledge and answers they need, making the case for a strong knowledge base.
We live in a world where the numbers of contract-type roles, remote staff and mobile employees are increasing. Let’s take a look at how today’s organizations can use knowledge management solutions to accommodate the specific needs of these employees and the customers they serve.
Provide a Robust Knowledge Base to Remote Employees
With the number of remote employees on the rise, organizations are challenged with how to equip their staff with the proper knowledge tools. Many remote employees do not have the luxury of getting up and asking the coworker or manager in the next cubicle or office if they run into a problem. Having an extensive knowledge base enables remote employees to access key information they need in their daily jobs, improving the efficiency and accuracy of their work.
Empower the Workforce
Remote workers can feel disengaged from the organization. Knowledge management offers a way for these workers to still feel connected. Through knowledge management, remote workers can get answers to their questions, as well as submit feedback, contribute to community posts and collaborate with others on topics of interest. Knowledge management serves as a way to connect employees to each other, and enables them to get the help they need, when they need it.
Provide Access to Knowledge Anywhere, Anytime
Employees in the field for their jobs—such as service technicians, truck drivers and claims adjusters—require a way to access the knowledge base on-the-go. Because these employees do not always have access to computers, they need the ability to access knowledge on any device—tablet, smartphone, etc. When field service employees need information, for example, it can be extremely costly and time-consuming to contact a help desk and wait in a queue to receive assistance. Using a mobile knowledge base helps employees get the information they need and get on with their work.
Contribute to the Knowledge Base in Real Time
Remote and field employees are an excellent source of knowledge. Often, new issues come up in the field, and these employees are the best source to report and document them. Having the ability to contribute to the knowledge base in real time can provide great benefit for the organization. Inputting issues, and how to address them, as they arise can better enable the workforce as a whole, reducing the time and effort spent searching for answers.
Ensure Consistency Across the Workforce
With today’s distributed workforce, it can be difficult to ensure consistency. People are in different places, working in different ways, which can yield a disjointed customer experience. Your customers shouldn’t need to know where an employee is working, and should feel confident that they will experience the same high-quality service, regardless of which employee they’re interacting with. Knowledge management can help drive this consistency by providing employees across all locations the same information at all times. In this way, you can drive the same high-level, consistent customer experience across the organization.
In short, mobile workers have many different needs. They must be able to easily access their companies’ knowledge bases when in the field, retrieve answers on-the-go, contribute information in real time, and have access to the same knowledge as coworkers located in traditional company offices. They also need to be able to check their schedules and shift changes in order to deliver excellent service in their lines of work. Having a robust knowledge base in place—along with technology to support mobile communications across multiple channels and devices—can position your organization to manage and maximize its evolving workforce successfully.
Verint® is a global leader in customer engagement solutions that are used in contact center, branch and back-office operations, as well as customer experience and digital marketing functions, to heighten loyalty, enhance customer and employee engagement, improve customer experiences and maximize revenue, while reducing cost and mitigating risk. Learn more at www.verint.com.
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