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Promoting knowledge sharing with effective leadership - a case study from socio-organisational perspective

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• https://doi.org/10.1080/14778238.2020.1833689

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This case study concerns enterprise with multiple years of experiences in knowledge management. Through tracking for five consecutive years the annual evaluation of knowledge innovation units within the organisation, those highly engaged units were identified and chosen for subsequent analysis based on a KSB-ecological approach to identify enabling internal factors for sustaining knowledge-sharing behaviour of employees. Research outcomes indicate that knowledge sharing of employees can be driven by two types of leadership: the Transformational Leadership that drives knowledge-sharing behaviour with a vision, and the Inclusive Leadership that, by creating a sense of well-being for employees, promotes knowledge sharing as a valuable act of generosity. Research findings may help enterprises facing bottlenecks in knowledge management to redirect attention to changes of leadership style, remove internal barriers to knowledge sharing, and profoundly nurturing employee proactivity towards building an enabling socio-organisational process for knowledge sharing.

• Knowledge sharing
• socio-organisational process
• behavior of generosity

Acknowledgments

The author would like to sincerely thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions, which have greatly improved this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Knowledge sharing culture: a case study.

• Meliha Handzic  and 
• Don Agahari

School of Information Systems, Technology and Management, The University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

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This paper reports a case study of a knowledge sharing culture in a large Australian consulting firm, Deloitte. An exploratory study was conducted to examine the extent to which knowledge sharing behaviour occurs within Deloitte and its relationships with the firm's core values, structures and practices. The study identified widespread knowledge sharing behaviour as demonstrated by a high degree of communication and collaboration activities. It also identified the firm's core values and corresponding procedures that cultivated trust, redundancy, staff empowerment, motivation and remuneration. Structures and practices were also found to convey a high degree of leadership commitment and provision for continuous learning.

• Knowledge sharing
• organisational culture
• knowledge management
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• Daud Khan  and 
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Knowledge sharing in online environments: A qualitative case study

Khe Foon Hew

• [email protected]

National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616

Noriko Hara

School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, 1320 East 10th St. Bloomington, IN 47405 USA

This study expands the perspective of knowledge sharing by categorizing the different types of knowledge that individuals shared with one another and examining the patterns of motivators and barriers of knowledge sharing across three online environments pertaining to the following professional practices—advanced nursing practice, Web development, and literacy education. The patterns indicate the different possible combinations of motivators or barriers that may exist in individuals. Data were gathered through online observations and semistructured interviews with 54 participants. The cross-case analysis shows that the most common type of knowledge shared across all three environments was practical knowledge. Overall, seven motivators were found. Analysis also suggests that the most common combination of motivators for knowledge sharing was collectivism and reciprocity. A total of eight barriers were identified. The most common combination of barriers varied in each online environment. Discussions as to how the types of professional practices may contribute to the different results are provided, along with implications and future possible research directions.

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Volume 58 , Issue 14

December 2007

Pages 2310-2324

• Knowledge Management

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• The Workstream
• Knowledge sharing

3 ways to use knowledge sharing to boost business and morale

Open up your culture to preserve your legacy

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The first day of a new job, team, or project is a whirlwind of tiny details. Every question answered spawns three more, and everyone else just seems to know everything. Long-time employees – you’re not immune either. You can be at a company for years and still, with every big change, feel like a stranger in a strange land all over again. When an organization has a habit of keeping its information tucked away and buried in shared drives, written docs, or human brains, this not-knowing is unavoidable whether you’re a newbie or a veteran. A culture full of walls slows down projects, forces employees into frequent and frustrating searches for knowledge, and eats up the time of experts who have to answer the same questions over and over and over. Without a way to store and access the information they need, employees end up stumbling around in the dark. In a survey for the American Management Association, 36 percent of workers said that they “hardly ever” know what’s going on in their companies. Fifty-five percent said they only know what’s going on “some of the time.” 

As Kim Wall, Atlassian team lead for technical account management, puts it, “You might find old data or old knowledge that's not useful anymore,” she explained. “You might not find the answers that you're looking for at all. Even though they live there, you may not find them.”

Essentially, having a bunch of locked vaults of knowledge throughout the company wastes a lot of time – and (cliché alert) time is money.

What is knowledge sharing?

Not to be basic, but we should probably define knowledge sharing before we get into the details of why it’s a good thing. Knowledge sharing is the exchange of information or understanding between people, teams, communities, or organizations. It’s a proactive and intentional act that expands the number of entities in the know while also creating or building upon an accessible archive of knowledge for others.

If you’re writing a book or manual, presenting your research, mentoring, or just having an informal chat with your team, you’re sharing knowledge. Knowledge sharing helps workers and businesses be more agile, adaptable, and better able pivot and ensure ongoing growth and survival.

3 bad habits that hinder knowledge sharing (and the fixes)

As with most deepset habits, people working within a closed off culture may have some trouble letting go of their best-kept secrets. Watch out for these behaviors that might bring knowledge sharing to a screeching halt – and proactively model the vibes you want to see instead.

Habit: Hoarding

The harm: Knowledge is power, and power is job security. Employees who want to feel they’re indispensable may keep what they know hidden to make themselves seem irreplaceable. Some may be driven by competition, worried about someone else getting the credit they believe they deserve. 

The fix: Give kudos. If you regularly recognize and promote everyone’s hard work, you’ll show them as experts in their arena and dull their need to fight for status on their own. They’ll also feel less threatened if they know the company sees them as valuable mentors for new workers or folks on other teams.

Habit: Favoritism

The harm: Who are the most celebrated? Who leads most discussions? An organization built around “rock stars” discourages others from opening up. 

The fix: Spread the love. Recognize that there are likely members of your team who hold vast knowledge, but they aren’t the most vocal or are in roles that don’t call for lots of exposure. Yet, they could be your company’s best leaders. Help them boost their PR by directly asking for their thoughts or to take the lead on a project – an opportunity to share what they know.

Habit: Reliance on the go-tos

The harm: Do you ever say, “I don’t know what we’d do without so-and-so”? That’s a problem. While So-and-so may be proud to be the company’s walking wiki , it’s a burden to have to answer the same questions constantly. These interruptions make your expert less capable of doing great work, and if they decide to walk, all that knowledge goes with them.

The fix: Build your bench. Some companies make it part of everyone’s job to mentor another employee, and even go so far as to tie salary increases and promotions to passing on knowledge. This way, more than just one brain knows how you do as a team or organization. Creating a program like this may be a big cultural shift – and could be too much at once. You may start with interviewing and documenting what your go-to experts know. (We’ll tell you how in a bit.)

If you build it, they will contribute

For this and so many other good reasons, knowledge-sharing systems are a crucial tool in keeping your entire organization in the loop. When people share what they know, your organization will collect all kinds of useful content. This knowledge-sharing system will soon be jam-packed with everything from FAQs and product troubleshooting tips, to high-level documents about the company’s goals and mission. 

With total transparency, teams are able to find and communicate relevant information easily. Not only does it connect the right people with the right content, it cultivates a company culture that shares wins, losses, and lessons. By shining a light on mistakes or disappointments – product launches that didn’t take or reasons why your company’s customers are choosing the competition – all employees benefit.

Some knowledge on types of knowledge

Now that you've gotten real with the state of the state of your company's openness, understand the different types of knowledge you will want to capture. By placing these insights into separate buckets, you’ll have a better sense of how to capture them. (We’ll tell you how to get started too.)  

Tacit knowledge . It’s one thing to be told that a stove is hot and quite another to get that lesson while running to the ER after placing your hand on it. Some things you just have to figure out by doing – that’s tacit knowledge. Think about how much we pick up just going about our day-to-day jobs. It’s the most valuable information for businesses and the toughest to pin down. You don’t know what you don’t know until you need to know.

Capture it: Harnessing all the business-driving stuff inside the heads of your employees is hard, and not a perfect science. But there’s hope. You can recruit an interviewer who can ask the deep-dive questions of your veteran employees, document their answers, and store them in a best practices hub within your knowledge-sharing system. 

That was a lot of words. Here’s how this might play out. Vernon is one of your top support reps who has been solving issues for your customers for several years. He always gets five-star ratings no matter how dire the reason your customers call in. How is he doing this?

Have an interviewer sit with Vernon to learn what is beyond the talking points or trouble-shooting guide. What are the special things that Vernon is doing to please callers? Throw him some scenarios and see what he comes up with. Gather up his answers and share them broadly in your knowledge-sharing system, social intranet , or internal wiki and encourage everyone to use it so we don’t all lose it. (Bonus: Vernon will feel incredible and may be more proactive with sharing his approaches in the future and/or encourage others to do so too.)

Here’s one way we gather tacit knowledge at Atlassian. “We have something that we like to call conversation guides,” explains Wall. “We'll sit on a call with the person who just knows this stuff to their bones and write down every single thing that that person asked the customer, every single phrase, and all of the concepts. Then we try to formulate it into something that other people can use, so that they get that base level of knowledge without having had to live in those shoes for 15 years.”

Explicit knowledge . Also known as “codified knowledge,” this is information that has moved out of the brain and into written or audio form. It’s now available for mass access and consumption. It’s the stuff you likely already have ready to go, such as the employee handbook, whether we work the day after New Year’s, and how the heck to get that printer to stop jamming.

Capture it: Good job on preserving these important assets in some documented form. Now make sure they’re findable and current, so that they deliver long-term value. You can’t really blame the events team for ordering 500 company t-shirts with the old logo if that’s what they found in your files.

Skip the shared drives (which can be a document black hole) and bring on a solution that makes updating and sharing knowledge easy and fast. Tools like Confluence , an open platform for creating, sharing, commenting on, and archiving all content, can help. 

Implicit knowledge . These are the unwritten how-to’s of the office that originate in the processes and routines of the everyday. These tidbits turbocharge you into getting things done smoothly and efficiently – and appropriately within your company’s culture. “It lives in how you run the business,” says Wall. “It’s what everyone knows.”

It’s the difference between creating a project plan in Google Slides when the culture prefers using Trello boards. It shows newcomers how to be as they ramp up on their work function and saves them from having to ask questions like whether it’s ok to Slack the boss after 5 or if anyone minds if you turn off your camera during video conference calls.   

Capture it:  This one is a toughy since a lot of the “how we do” details stem from living and breathing the company culture and infusing it every email, project, and presentation. Your mission and vision statement can serve as high-level guidelines of what everyone should put first in their day-to-day interactions. You also want to grab and share specific ways of working that trip people up. 

One way to do this is to survey your employees asking “What about the way our teams work did you wish you knew on day one?” and gather feedback. Then consolidate the answers into best practices docs that you can then share broadly to new hires as well as current employees.

Now that you know what you know about knowledge-sharing

Knowledge sharing isn’t a one and done; it needs to be embedded into the fiber of your company so that valuable information doesn’t vaporize, become locked in silos, or disappear when a veteran moves on to their next adventure. 

You might think that you’re all set up to keep business-driving knowledge forever and ever, but take an honest look and see if your organization encourages employees to keep their cards close to their chests. Run through the practices we’ve talked about, but equally important, see how you can model the change you want to see. 

Here’s some homework: have thoughts about how to improve the knowledge sharing practices in your company? Share them (and this article, why not?) with your team right now and kick off the dialogue. Go, go!

You may also like

Success story.

How HubSpot created a company-wide knowledge base with a social intranet

Confluence creates a culture of idea-sharing and innovation by giving teams the power to create, share, and manage content, all in one place

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Knowledge sharing behaviours and patterns among academic students: a case study of electrical engineering technology students of national institute of construction technology (nict), uromi, edo state.

Chidi Onuoha Kalu , NICTM Library, National Institute of Construction Technology and Management, Uromi Follow BLESSING ANEGBEMENTE USIEDO , NICT Library, National Institute of Construction Technology (NICT), Uromi, Follow Esther I. Chidi-Ka;u , Nigerian Library Association, National Office, Abuja Follow

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Abrams, L. C., Cross, R., Lesser, E., and Levin, D. Z. (2003). “Nurturing interpersonal trust in knowledge-sharing networks”. Academy of Management Executive, 17(4), 64-77.

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Cheng, M. Y., Ho, J. S. Y., and Lau, P. M. (2009). “Knowledge sharing in academic institutions: a study of Multimedia University Malaysia”. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 7 (3), 313-324.

Cheng, Y.C. and Ku, H.Y. (2009). An investigation of the effects of reciprocal peer tutoring. Computers in Human Behaviour [online], 25 (1), 40-49. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science

Choi, B., Poon, S. K., and Davis, J. G. (2008). “Effects of knowledge management strategy on organizational performance: a complementarity theory-based approach”. Omega, 36 (2), 235-251.

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Den Hooff and De Ridder (2007). Knowledge sharing in context: The influence of organizational commitment, communication climate and cmc use on knowledge sharing. Journal of Knowledge Management, 8 (6), 117-130.

Edem, N. B. and Ani, O. (2010). Knowledge management in academic libraries in Nigeria. Paper presented at the 48th National Conference of the Nigeria Library Association, Abuja, 2010.

Essoo, N., and Dibb, S. (2004). “Religious influences on shopping behaviour: An exploratory study”. Journal of Marketing Management, 20 (7), 683-712.

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Frost, A. "Knowledge Sharing". KMT. Retrieved 17 April 2019.

Gorry, G. A. (2008). Sharing knowledge in the public sector: two case studies. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 6(2), 105-111.

Harley, D., Newall, S., Scarbrough, H. and Swan, J. (1999). Knowledge management and innovation: networks and networking. Journal of Knowledge Management, 3 (4), 262-265.

Hicks, J. A., and King, L. A. (2008). “Religious commitment and positive mood as information about meaning in life”.

Lockspeiser, T.M. et al., (2006). Understanding the experience of being taught by peers: the value of social and cognitive congruence. Advances in Health Sciences Education [online], 13 (3), 361-372. http://www.springerlink.com/content/q15691344t18n555/fulltext.pdf , [accessed 14.10.19].

Majid, M.S. and Yueng, T.J., (2007). Knowledge sharing patterns of undergraduate students in Singapore. Library Review [online], 56 (6), 485-494. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/0350560607.pdf, [accessed 01.10.09.

Serban, A. M. and Luan, J. (2002). "An Overview of Knowledge Management" (PDF). University of Kentucky. Retrieved 17 April 2019.

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Shanhong, T. (2000). Knowledge management in libraries in the 21st century. In, Parirokh, M., Daneshgar, F. and Fattahi, R. (2008 ). Identifying Knowledge-sharing requirements in academic libraries. Library Review 2 (3), 107-122.

Soller, A., (2004). Understanding knowledge-sharing breakdowns: a meeting of the quantitative and qualitative minds. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning [online], 20 (3), 212-223.http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118773363/PDFSTART, [accessed 12.10.19].

Tan, J. (2009). Higher education students’ learning and knowledge sharing: A grounded theory study of blog use. PhD. thesis, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield [online], http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/92/2/Jin_Tan_Thesis_FINAL.pdf, [accessed 10.10.19].

Yang, J. (2004). Job related knowledge sharing, comparative case study. Journals of Knowledge Management, 8 (3), 118-126.

Knowledge sharing among students is perceived as one of the most convenient and effective way to obtain knowledge. Knowledge sharing among academics students enhances the ability to seek studies-related help from one another and facilitates achieving outcomes of collective learning. Therefore, this paper investigates the knowledge sharing behaviours and patterns of Electrical/Electronic Engineering Technology Students of National Institute of Construction Technology, Uromi. The descriptive survey method was used. Questionnaire responses from 27 students were analysed to address questions related to how knowledge is shared between students and what motivates students to share knowledge. The study highlighted the barriers in knowledge sharing among students and level of their satisfaction. The major findings of the study revealed that students preferred using social networks in knowledge sharing. What motivates students in sharing knowledge is trust. The study also revealed that the most barriers in knowledge sharing among students are low self-esteem and illiteracy. Student’s satisfaction in knowledge sharing is moderate. The study concludes that the influence of social networks can be used to motivate students to collectively share and reflect on what they have learnt. In order to achieve knowledge effectiveness, individual knowledge needs to be shared. The study recommends that knowledge sharing should be encouraged among students, conferences and excursions should be vigorously carried out to create further awareness of knowledge sharing among students and the areas of networking as subject of knowledge sharing should be highlighted since it is the most preferred channel of knowledge sharing.

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Knowledge sharing in a multi-cultural setting: a case study

• Published: 09 July 2003
• Volume 1 , pages 11–27, ( 2003 )

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Organizational culture has been shown to influence the success of knowledge management practices. Hofstede's theory specifies that organizational culture is not independent of national culture. A case study of an international subsidiary was conducted to explore the extent to which knowledge sharing is dependent on national culture. Results indicate that language differences can create knowledge blocks, and cross-cultural differences can explain the direction of knowledge flows.

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A Study on the Influence of National Culture on Knowledge Sharing

An Empirical Model to Foster Innovation and Learning Through Knowledge Sharing Culture

Bridging the divide: intercultural competences to reconcile the knowledge transfer dilemma in multinational contexts, author information, authors and affiliations.

Queen's School of Business, Queen's University, Kingston, K7L 3N6, ON, Canada

Dianne P Ford & Yolande E Chan

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Ford, D., Chan, Y. Knowledge sharing in a multi-cultural setting: a case study. Knowl Manage Res Pract 1 , 11–27 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.kmrp.8499999

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Received : 29 November 2002

Revised : 21 February 2003

Accepted : 07 March 2003

Published : 09 July 2003

Issue Date : 01 July 2003

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.kmrp.8499999

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• DOI: 10.1080/15536548.2007.10855821
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Knowledge Sharing in Law Enforcement: A Case Study

• R. Bhaskar , Yi Zhang
• Published 1 July 2007
• Law, Computer Science
• Journal of Information Privacy and Security

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The sharink framework: a holistic perspective on key categories of influences shaping individual perceptions of knowledge sharing.

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Knowledge management in the public sector: stakeholder partnerships in the public policy development

Developing a holistic framework of key categories of influences that shape knowledge sharing from an individual perspective, intelligence-led policing (ilp) as a strategic planning resource in the fight against transnational organized crime (toc), privacy in the digital age: a review of information privacy research in information systems, communication interception technology (cit) and its use in the fight against transnational organised crime (toc) in australia : a review of the literature, laying the groundwork for the successful deployment of communication interception technology (cit) in modern policing, sensitive but unclassified: examining the use of electronic information sharing systems by law enforcement agencies in the united states, 71 references, communicating knowledge about police performance, knowledge management in the public sector: principles and practices in police work, knowledge-sharing hostility in russian firms, overcoming cultural barriers to sharing knowledge, diagnosing cultural barriers to knowledge management, knowledge sharing in organizations: a conceptual framework.

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The Learning Organization

ISSN : 0969-6474

Article publication date: 24 July 2007

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to present the empirical findings from a case study in knowledge sharing with the aim of understanding knowledge sharing in a strategic context through a socio‐technical approach. Design/methodology/approach – Knowledge sharing facilitators and barriers were examined in a UK owned multinational engineering organisation. A total of 20 semi‐structured interviews were conducted and analysed using a combination of matrix and template analysis. Findings – The paper highlights leadership, organisational, and individual factors that are perceived to impact knowledge sharing. Furthermore, three sub‐factors: trust, individual motivation and geographical location, are discussed as double‐edged factors, i.e. their impact on knowledge sharing is complex in that they may act as both barriers and enablers. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of this study is that it is conducted in a single organisational context. A second case study is currently being analysed to explore knowledge sharing in a different context within the same organisation. Practical implications – A balanced approach to knowledge management practices is emphasised where both technical and social aspects are taken into account. Originality/value – This paper provides important contributions. First, it emphasises the impact of strategic change on knowledge sharing as one aspect of the organisational knowledge management. Second, it frames knowledge sharing within a socio‐technical approach. Third, it provides us with empirical evidence through our use of case study in an organisational setting.

• Knowledge sharing
• Knowledge management
• Management strategy

Søndergaard, S. , Kerr, M. and Clegg, C. (2007), "Sharing knowledge: contextualising socio‐technical thinking and practice", The Learning Organization , Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 423-435. https://doi.org/10.1108/09696470710762646

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6 Ways Successful Teams Use Knowledge Sharing to Fuel Growth

Senior Marketing Manager at Loom

You’ve just sat down at your desk when you spot an urgent request from a client. Your coworker handled a similar request last month, but they’re away on vacation. You spend the next two hours digging through email threads, shared drives, and chat logs.

You’re frustrated, and you’ve wasted valuable time and possibly even missed crucial details that could put your client relationship at risk. The worst part is that this could have been avoided had your company prioritized knowledge sharing.

Knowledge sharing benefits everyone. Find out key strategies for creating a knowledge-sharing culture and fostering clear workplace communication at your company. 

What is knowledge sharing?

Knowledge sharing refers to the intentional process of exchanging information, ideas, expertise, and experiences. The types of knowledge that can be shared include explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge.

1. Explicit knowledge sharing

Explicit knowledge is easily documented, explained, and shared. Some examples of explicit knowledge include:

Flowcharts and diagrams

Databases and knowledge bases

Training materials and presentations

Recorded video tutorials and feedback

Written documents such as standard operating procedures, reports, and guides

2. Implicit knowledge sharing

Similar to explicit knowledge, implicit knowledge is easily explained, and the main way to acquire it is through experience. Some examples of implicit knowledge include:

Lessons learned from projects

Insights from customer interactions

Best practices based on previous experiences

Tips, tricks, and techniques based on experience

3. Tacit knowledge sharing

Based on personal experiences and instincts, tacit knowledge is more difficult to explain and share with others. Some examples include:

Creative problem-solving skills

Leadership and management skills

Interpersonal and communication skills

Intuition and gut feelings about situations

Why is effective knowledge sharing important?

Knowledge-sharing activities contribute to a more collaborative, thriving workplace in multiple ways.

Increased productivity and efficiency

Productivity gets a boost when knowledge is readily accessible and employees don’t have to waste time tracking it down. 

The 2022 State of Collaboration Survey notes that 64% of employees say poor collaboration costs them at least three hours each week in productivity. Knowledge sharing is a hallmark of good collaboration, and stronger relationships develop when employees learn from each other.

More engaged employees

When they see that your company is invested in their career development, employees feel valued. This impacts employee engagement , and workers who feel connected to your mission stay with your company longer.

LinkedIn’s 2024 State of Workplace Learning Report found that 7 out of 10 employees feel more connected to their organization through learning . The same report also found that companies with a strong learning culture saw a 57% improvement in employee retention .

Fewer silos

Two out of three workers report that company culture enables the formation of data silos . This is concerning, not only because silos hinder knowledge sharing, employee development, and cross-department collaboration, but also because they can become a competitive disadvantage when left unchecked. 

This is especially true when employees leave and take critical knowledge with them. Those remaining scramble to piece everything back together, wasting valuable time that could be used to improve existing processes.

More innovation and growth

When team members freely share ideas and insights, it inspires everyone to become more creative. This is because knowledge sharing opens the door to new perspectives and problem-solving angles that individuals may not have thought of on their own.

Studies have also shown that when teams share innovative knowledge, it further increases their creativity . This creates a self-sustaining loop powered by positive energy.

Improved company agility and performance

Change is one constant, and companies that thrive are agile enough to pivot and adapt on the fly. The free exchange of collective knowledge is one trait agile companies have in common. Aquent’s 2024 Talent Insights Report found that 88% of workers in high-performing teams stated that their team is very effective at sharing information across different departments.

Companies that foster communication for distributed teams as well as across departments also benefit from quicker decision-making processes.

How to build a culture of knowledge sharing

Many employees and companies still operate under the myth that keeping their cards close to their chest gives them a competitive edge. But, this approach often results in inefficient processes, stifled innovation, and less-engaged employees.

Creating a knowledge-sharing culture in day-to-day work results in more powerful collaboration. A culture focused on breaking down knowledge silos is especially essential for leading successful remote teams , where silos can be physical barriers as well. 

Here’s how to build a culture where knowledge sharing is easy, valued, and streamlined into daily events and tasks.

Step 1: Develop a knowledge management strategy

Your first step to setting the stage for a knowledge-sharing culture is to create a knowledge management strategy. While knowledge management and knowledge sharing sound essentially the same, they’re slightly different:

Knowledge management involves organizing, storing, and sharing both explicit and tacit knowledge.

To develop your knowledge management strategy, collaborate with your team to answer these questions:

What types of information should we document to improve day-to-day efficiency?

What types of information should we document that impact business objectives?

What information is already documented?

How should we create, store, and share documentation?

How can we incorporate knowledge documentation into our existing workflows?

With a solid knowledge management plan in place, you can maintain a curated set of resources efficiently and your teams will spend less time and effort looking for information.

Step 2: Set up a central knowledge management system

Based on feedback from your team, select knowledge-sharing tools that make it easy to document, access, and share knowledge. Ease of use and accessibility are key here.

Some potential platforms to consider include:

Loom : Paired with its screen recording tool, Loom’s video hosting service allows you to organize and share video recordings of team processes, training, feedback, product demos, and more. Plus, Loom AI makes it easier than ever to manage your team’s knowledge by automatically generating video titles, chapters, and summaries—as well as turning your recordings into written standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Confluence : As company wiki software, Confluence makes it easy to capture and organize knowledge, and the Atlassian Intelligence AI makes it easy to automate repetitive tasks and summarize documents.

GitBook : Designed for technical teams, GitBook not only supports knowledge documentation but also syncs with your codebase. The built-in AI also indexes all knowledge within your GitBook so you can ask it company-specific questions.

Step 3: Establish clear processes

How should your team document different types of knowledge, and when in the current process should documentation take place?

Creating documentation templates makes it easier for teammates to adopt new knowledge-sharing policies. Some examples of knowledge-sharing templates include:

Troubleshooting guides

Team and cross-department SOPs

Team and company policies

Client-facing processes

Company, team, and role-specific training

Centralizing these templates as part of your knowledge management plan ensures that everyone uses the most current versions of files for recurring processes and adheres to company or department best practices.

Step 4: Provide necessary tools, resources, and support

You need to provide your team with tools that make it easy to document and share knowledge. Share best practices and training resources for each tool to help each employee get the most benefit.

When choosing tools, consider the limitations of digital communication and ways you can promote inclusivity, especially within hybrid and remote teams. 

In a 2022 survey, Loom discovered that 91% of workers have had coworkers misunderstand their digital messages on Slack, email, and other platforms. The worst part is that these digital tools had a greater impact on BIPOC employees , with Black employees spending an average of two minutes longer thinking about their messages compared to their white coworkers.

Hybrid and remote teammates may also find themselves at a knowledge-sharing disadvantage due to proximity bias . Tackling this problem requires training leaders on how to effectively manage distributed teams, but Gallup found that 70% of managers have had no formal training on leading hybrid teams . 

A good place to start is by providing manager-focused remote work resources while also promoting knowledge sharing among your company’s community of managers.

Step 5: Measure and track knowledge sharing impact

While feedback is a key way to see whether your knowledge-sharing culture has the positive impact you hoped for, it’s important to gather quantitative data to measure its value. 

Choose metrics that align with your team and company goals, then regularly review them. Some potential metrics impacted by knowledge sharing include:

Knowledge management platform usage statistics

Time and cost savings

Employee skill development, competencies, and job performance

Number of customer service requests and response times

Success rate of company key performance indicators (KPIs)

Regularly assess these metrics to track the quality of your knowledge sharing and its impact on team and company performance.

6 powerful knowledge sharing strategies + examples

Here are specific examples of ways to implement knowledge sharing at your company.

1. Add knowledge sharing to your onboarding process

Graceful Aging Legal Services uses Loom to guide new hires through initial training.

Onboarding is a critical moment for setting remote workers up for success . Including knowledge sharing and documentation best practices during this time shows new hires that you value the exchange of information. Some ways you can foster knowledge sharing during onboarding include:

Buddy up: Create a mentor program that pairs new hires with experienced team members.

Share the wealth: Invite new employees to your company’s knowledge management platform.

Create new hire videos: Use recording software like Loom to train new employees on the tools they’ll use daily.

Bring in external experts: Organize cross-department introductions to expose new hires to different areas of the business.

Once they’ve settled in, invite new employees to share feedback on your knowledge-sharing system. This can uncover knowledge gaps or unclear documentation.

2. Start team meetings with knowledge sharing moments

During its company all-hands, social media app Buffer includes updates from the CEO and each department. Buffer also breaks employees into smaller groups during its all-hands to discuss and share ideas around a specific topic. 

You can share knowledge on a smaller scale by starting team meetings with a quick opportunity for someone to share recent learnings.

3. Create a “learn and share” policy

If a teammate attends a conference, invite them to share the most important things they learned. This helps expand your entire team’s skill set, essentially multiplying the benefit of the individual employee’s time spent away from work.

Attendees can write up their top takeaways in an email, share them in a Loom recording, or present them at the next team meeting.

4. Provide informal learning opportunities

Invite employees to host a “lunch and learn” session to share their expertise on a specific topic. 

You can also invite members from other teams to share processes that are integral to their workflows. This provides insight into how each team works and may inspire innovations that improve the efficiency of other teams’ workflows.

5. Encourage leadership to host “office hours”

Like it or not, leadership acts as a role model for the rest of the company. So, if your leaders keep their personal knowledge behind locked doors, chances are employees will follow in their footsteps.

One way leaders can set a positive example to promote knowledge sharing is to host office hours. Each leader blocks out 30 minutes to an hour every week or two weeks where any employee can schedule a chat with them about a topic of their choice.

6. Block off time for knowledge documentation

We all have items on our to-do lists that won’t get done unless they’re added to our calendar. Another way to ensure documentation doesn’t slip through the cracks is to include it as a task and prioritize it during a weekly review. 

Author of Building a Second Brain Tiago Forte describes a weekly review as “preventative maintenance of the mind,” saying that chaos is inevitable when we don’t maintain our tools and our environment.

Embed knowledge sharing into your everyday work with Loom

Knowledge sharing creates an environment where your employees feel engaged, connected, and empowered.

Loom provides an easy, time-efficient way to document and share knowledge. In just a few clicks, its intuitive screen recording tool lets you capture key on-screen details. By recording your webcam at the same time, Loom adds vital context like nonverbal expressions and tone of voice to help your team create helpful, friendly collaborative learning content.

Find out how Loom makes knowledge sharing effortless and try its screen recorder for free today.

Sep 3, 2024

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Jeong Lee works in Marketing at Loom.