The Case for Collaboration

Nirmala Palaniappan nirmala.pal@gmail.com May 2011

Employee Satisfaction

Knowledge Culture

Knowledge Culture – Broadly Speaking Employee Satisfaction – Broadly Speaking Entry (Hiring) Adaptation, Development (Training,

Competence) Performance, Achievement (Appraisals,

Incentives) Org. Contribution, Growth (Promotions,

Succession Planning) Retention (Job Rotation, Attrition)

Command-control policies and practices to be reconsidered and collaborative approaches to be made the norm - HR and Management

Camaraderie has to scale up to the Business Unit level and the Organizational level, through cross-team/BU initiatives. Internal competition to be blown to smithereens

Personal knowledge tools co-promoted by HR (& IT/IS)*

Employee satisfaction & engagement: Determined, partially, by an environment that enables and celebrates knowledge sharing and collaboration (leading to sense of belonging, learning, performance, organizational purpose, collaborative wins etc)

Employee satisfaction and KM surveys need to be designed to bring to light the link between the knowledge environment and employees’ sense of belonging/performance

1. Hiring - Hire people with a (potentially) good Knowledge quotient (KQ) and Social Intelligence

Attributes revolving around sharing, collective thinking, networking, conversations, collaboration, reuse, long-term thinking and big-picture perspective

2. Training - Encourage informal learning mechanisms (via peers, seniors, cross LoB) and learning through communities and virtual teams. Include these as valid ideas in the induction program

3. Competency Development - Extend the previous point on Training with aspects like community-based learning, mentoring, shadowing and coaching

What if competency/skill databases have a significant social input that contributes to the final rating (eg: novice, expert-level #, guru etc)

4. Appraisals - Assess the employee’s performance based on her knowledge sharing and learning intentions, methods and results. It must not be generic but be based on the individual’s objectives as defined by business. It should be an important criteria for a high rating

5. Incentives - Include KM elements in existing business award categories or introduce an exclusive category for KM – The visibility/recognition/appreciation being more important than monetary gestures

“It’s not what you know, but what you share that counts.” – Basis for Promotions, Appraisals, Recognition & Rewards, Compensation

6. Succession Planning/Promotions - Identify natural leaders who empower their teams through sharing, mentoring and practices involving collective thinking and execution

“You can tell a lot about a company based on two things - the stories that go around and the people who are promoted and/or those who are not celebrated” – Source unknown

7. Job Rotation: KM could possibly have a role to play in designing the Job Rotation policies and processes alongside the HR. We need to understand the links between various roles and how rotation of employees may help the organization improve efficiency/innovation

8. Attrition/Retention: The art and science of Exit Interviews need to be better. Principles should revolve around knowledge retention, participation in communities as an ex-employee, part-time project-based consultation in the case of critical employees etc

Nirmala Palaniappan

KM Lead – Asia Pacific Business, Oracle

nirmala.pal@gmail.com