Your knowledge sharing is flawed: here’s how to fix it

Knowledge sharing sounds like one of those corporate buzzwords that people love to toss around without actually putting in any effort to improve it.

But knowledge sharing is not just something to read or talk about.

It’s the very real, day-in and day-out processes that employees, contractors, and freelancers use to share knowledge with each other — or not. When you calculate the losses associated with bad knowledge transfer, all of that training, re-training, and waiting information amounts to $47 million lost by US businesses every year.

The future of work is already here. And it requires a whole new approach to sharing information.

From my experience as a CEO of two different companies (both of which help with knowledge transfer), I’ve put a lot of time into reworking our own processes. Here’s why I think every company should do the same, plus actionable tips to make it happen.

Why it’s time to revamp your knowledge sharing

If you think it’s okay to put off restructuring the way your company shares knowledge, think again. Here’s why now is the time.

Remove power struggles

Research by the Harvard Business Review shows that employees are more likely to adequately share knowledge when they believe that it will help fellow employees and when they aren’t afraid of criticism.

Successful knowledge sharing can remove power struggles by clarifying why knowledge sharing is important and how it helps the entire company. In more collaborative cultures, where people aren’t constantly ratting each other out or taking credit for other people’s work, great knowledge sharing processes will be easier to achieve. So when you identify problems with knowledge sharing, you also have the opportunity to discover and alleviate deeper and broader company culture issues.

Accept the reality of employee turnover

Employee turnover rates aren’t likely to improve any time soon. Millennials are predicted to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. This generation is so far the most likely to switch jobs, although incoming data on the Gen Z workforce over the next decade could show that Gen Z is even more likely to do so, considering this generation is expected to value flexibility and meaningful work even more so.

When you tackle knowledge sharing, you can accept this reality and proactively handle turnover.

Embrace the rise of the smart office

Today, knowledge is no longer stored in one central office, but in the cloud. Employees are collaborating across a variety of tools. You need knowledge-sharing processes that follow suit.

Value bottom-up sharing (not just top-down)

A lot of knowledge sharing today is very top-down. It’s all about onboarding and training. Very few companies have great bottom-up processes, meaning they source information from all collaborators and implementers. Without bottom-up sharing in place, new employees have to constantly reinvent the wheel, leaving your company at a major disadvantage.

Offer more meaningful work

According to a Gallup poll, Millennials and Gen Z workers value these things the most in an employer: care for their wellbeing, ethical leadership, transparency, and diverse and inclusive workplaces.

Better knowledge sharing fosters openness and transparency while connecting new employees to your company culture and mission faster. The quicker they can access training and information, the better.

10 strategies to transform knowledge sharing

Knowledge sharing is an important way to make good on your brand promise to customers, stay competitive in the marketplace, and engage younger generations of savvy, choosy employees. Here’s how to revamp your knowledge sharing.

1. Create your own vision for knowledge sharing

You probably have a company vision for your brand, your products, your customer service, and your marketing. Why not have one for knowledge sharing? Rather than treat knowledge sharing as a series of tasks, take a step back and consider what you truly want to create. For example, maybe your vision includes creating a company culture where employees at every level feel valued, know that their work matters, and want to openly share the details of their work.

2. Set up a focus group

Create a focus group with employees from multiple teams, seniority levels, and ages, to come together and make recommendations. They can research knowledge sharing methods, voice their concerns with both receiving and giving information, and talk about their experience at previous employers (the good and the bad). This way, you leave no stone unturned when it comes to ideas for process improvement.

3. Require managers to create video presentations for their teams

While we do offer plenty of bottom-up strategies in this list, there are still important top-down methods. One of the best ways to share knowledge is to create valuable training videos. Require that all managers (from different departments and teams) create evergreen trainings. Assign them a due date to make sure these videos get done. And make sure that managers in different regions are creating their own content to account for cultural differences and learning styles.

4. Show real examples in how-to videos

When creating tutorial-style videos, make sure that video creators are either sharing their screens or filming real-world examples, depending on the type of content. For the videos to be effective, they need to be actionable, not fluffy.

5. Make sure that employees are generating SOPs

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are often thought of as a top-down approach. For example, a PR manager creates an SOP detailing the process for distributing a press release and shares this with new PR associates. However, this can — and should — be turned on its head. Require employees to make SOPs for the processes they’ve created for themselves, and make sure that managers are in the habit of requesting SOP updates from everyone. After all, they know their own procedures better than anyone. These docs can be shared with new people who later fill their shoes.

6. Centralize collaboration in as few tools as possible (especially within teams)

A “single source of truth” is a pipedream for many companies. It can be a challenge to find a single collaboration tool that works for everyone in your company. Instead, seek to keep work within each department or team occurring in 2–3 tools. For example, your marketing department might use one asynch video tool and one project management tool.

7. Generate searchable digital libraries with always-accessible information

When you follow the tip above, and keep work in as few places as possible, you’ll also be able to create searchable digital libraries so employees can enter a few keywords and pull up tasks and comments from years past. In addition, you’ll want to have one place for employees to search for the training videos, SOPs, and other materials everyone is creating. This can be an LMS or video training platform.

8. Train employees in processes and procedures

With multiple forms of training and onboarding content, make sure that you focus on processes and procedures. This helps the training to be more practical and less theoretical, while ensuring that the training will be relevant regardless of the project, campaign, or task. Of course, processes can change, so don’t use a high production value for videos subject to change. Instead, rely on simple screensharing videos or SOP documents.

9. Create guidelines and expectations for offboarding

Systematizing offboarding is just as important as systematizing onboarding. When it comes to knowledge sharing, offboarding might even be more important. Why? Because it’s during offboarding that you have a chance to collect as much bottom-up information as possible.

Create an offboarding checklist for each team, department, or role. You might include things like:

• Transfer any knowledge from personal resources to company resources (ex: add notes from personal iPhone to the company’s Notion or ClickUp docs)
• Update all existing SOPs with current processes
• Create new SOPs for all important processes
• Add screensharing tutorial videos to SOPs where needed
• List out incomplete projects and tasks
• Update task statuses in project management tool
• Organize, name, and tag digital assets in digital asset management platform

10. Capture knowledge in ways that are unique to each team

Managers need to prioritize knowledge sharing as one of their most important initiatives. It’s up to them to capture the knowledge in formats and styles that are unique to their team. Make sure every manager feels empowered and supported in capturing knowledge. For example, your graphic design team might need to create a library of templates, in addition to making training videos and SOPs.

My vision for knowledge sharing is that CEOs take it seriously. It should be both top-down and bottom-up. Don’t procrastinate. Instead, schedule it in with video training deadlines for managers and offboarding checklists. And make knowledge sharing automatic with collaboration tools that offer great searching and filtering features.

I’m so obsessed with knowledge sharing, I even wrote a book about it. You can read Build Your Knowledge Network for free here.