Institutional knowledge is the shared and applied knowledge of
procedures, rules, traditions, values, history, and performances
that exist among members of an organization. Knowledge management
is broadly defined as any process (formal or informal) that
facilitates the creation, retention, distribution, and application
of knowledge for decision purposes, and involves helping
individuals within an organization to share knowledge by creating
ready access, context, and infrastructure. Knowledge management
strategies and techniques can include succession planning, expert
software systems, mentoring, organizational storytelling,
e-learning, and intergovernmental agency sharing of best practices.
Using an effective knowledge strategy reduces costly learning
cycles and facilitates and encourages the sharing and use of
knowledge, including the exchange of tacit knowledge (internal to a
person) through processes such as knowledge teams. An effective
knowledge management strategy provides organizations with the
resources to maintain contextual insights on future problems, avoid
the repetition of past mistakes, and preserve essential core
traditions and norms.
Federal Knowledge Management Working Group
The federal government continues to make steady progress in its
systemic knowledge management capacity through the daily knowledge
preservation and mentoring activities of veteran employees and the
efforts of senior executives to employ and measure the effects of
varied strategies including succession planning, organizational
storytelling, and communities of practice. The efforts of other
organizations such as the Federal Knowledge Management Working
Groupan interagency body established by the Federal Chief
Information Officers Council and comprised of knowledge management
practitioners from the federal, private, and nonprofit
sectorsprovide critical information and support to federal agencies
in the research, development, identification, and implementation of
knowledge management activities, practices, and technologies.
Nonetheless, the federal government continues to demonstrate the
need to improve its knowledge management capacity and strategies.
In their recent study, Elsa Rhoads and Vincent Ribiere explored the
extent of knowledge management practices in federal agencies based
on a Working Group-sponsored survey of knowledge management
practitioners in 16 cabinet-level departments and 10 independent
agencies.
Practitioners evaluated the use of 27 knowledge management
practices within their agencies. According to the survey results,
federal agencies usedwith greater perceived frequencythe funding
support for employees educational initiatives; partnerships or
strategic alliances to acquire knowledge; and informal mentoring
efforts.
Practices that ranked low among perceived usage in the agencies
included the development of explicit criteria to assess knowledge
sharing in employee performance evaluations; capture undocumented
knowledge from employees before retirement; share knowledge and
information through storytelling; and create monetary and
nonmonetary incentives for employees knowledge management
practices.
Survey participants indicated that the two highest benefits to
their agencies as a result of the implementation of knowledge
management practices included improved workforce skills and
improved workforce efficiency and productivity.
Best Practices Dissemination
A well-conceived and implemented knowledge management strategy can
enhance both employee engagement and a well-formed sense of
professional identity, particularly among veteran employees who are
keenly interested in the preservation and dissemination of
significant institutional knowledge. Many older employees envision
their roles within agencies as maintaining and conveying a refined
sense-making capability within their agencies to their younger
colleagues in solving problems and making sense of their external
environment.
Capturing and building upon the professional interests of career
employees to act as mentors and teachers for future generations of
federal employees should be a central priority of federal human
capital planning at a critical stage in the history of the federal
government. In fact, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
has taken steps to disseminate best practices in mentoring among
federal agencies.
The need for greater emphasis on systemic and effective knowledge
management practices is magnified when considering demographic
trends in the federal government. OPM estimates that of the 956,613
full-time permanent federal employees who will be eligible to
retire through FY 2016, 61.3 percent of these individuals (more
than 586,000 employees) will retire during that time period.
The departure of these employees creates the potential loss of
vital knowledge, skills, and abilities within federal agencies.
Without effective knowledge management practices in place and an
organizational culture that fully supports a learning
organizational workplace, a federal agency may not fully realize
the depth of the loss of information or plan in advance to
identify, retain, and disseminate critical information, values,
traditions, and expert sense-making.
Maintaining and enhancing knowledge management in federal agencies
depends on fostering values and reinforcing daily practices and
activities that support the agencies sense-making and knowledge
management capabilities. Some assert that certain core values are a
prerequisite for an organizations support of the transfer of
knowledge.
These values encompass the beliefs that institutional knowledge
represents a primary organizational asset that must be shared and
developed through the active involvement of employees in an
organizations knowledge management strategies and practices. But
others suggest that the preservation of values and traditions
itself becomes an intrinsic value for individuals who are seeking
to maintain and respect past practices, protocols, and
perspectives.
One might consider human capital initiativesincluding the
development of an organizations workforce talents and skillsas
critical to successful knowledge management and knowledge
retention. Human capital policies and programs include the
development of a succession plan for critical positions of
employees and frontline managers and the creation of a culture and
policies that support the retention of older, experienced
employees.
Further, an organization must establish or reinforce values and
processes that make knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing an
ingrained daily activity among employees of the organization. It
has also been observed that too many organizations focus their
succession planning efforts on senior executives without creating
succession plans for frontline managers and critical nonmanagement
positions.
Engage veteran employees in the process of identifying skills and
knowledge gaps within their agencies and collaborating with
management to design training, work assignments, coaching, and
mentoring opportunities, including the development of nonmanagement
technical adviser and frontline manager knowledge
management-related positions.
Succession Planning
Veteran employees should not only be involved in the development of
the agencys succession planning, but also encouraged to apply for
available frontline management and technical adviser positions
through upward mobility programs that are focused on promoting
experienced employees to knowledge management-related positions,
based on merit selection and completion of certain approved
criteria such as training and job rotation assignments.
The involvement of veteran employees in knowledge management roles
requires federal agencies to establish tasks, assignments, and
responsibilities through revised position descriptions, performance
appraisals, and reward systems that encourage employees to
formulate and implement knowledge management projects, including
educating younger colleagues about significant institutional
knowledge, its meaning, and application.
In an expanded formal succession planning process, veteran
employees can also serve as mentors, instructors, coaches, and
advisors to convey core values, stories, and critical insights to
less experienced employees. A more robust planning and
implementation role of veteran employees in agency succession
planning would enhance the identity of these employees as valued
partners in the stewardship of their agencies.
By playing an active role in imparting institutional knowledge
through a well-considered succession plan, veteran employees would
gain trust in their agency and indicate a respect for them.
Federal Supervisory Training
Frontline managers play a vital role in helping to build and
maintain values that underly an effective knowledge management
culture by empowering employees to
- be innovative
- assume leadership roles of knowledge management projects
- possess a sense of stewardship over the direction of the work
of their agency.
Recently proposed federal legislation introduced by Senator Daniel
Akakathe Federal Supervisor Training Act (S. 674)would provide an
excellent first step to develop the talents of frontline
supervisors to help their agencies enhance their learning cultures
by training supervisors in mentoring and motivating employees and
fostering a more respectful work environment.
Greater efforts must also be focused on providing frontline
supervisors with formal, varied management experiences through job
details, rotations, and stretch assignments that involve the
development of diverse knowledge management skills, including
organizational needs assessments, succession planning, coaching,
and e-learning, as part of agency-supported individual management
development plans.
Interagency assignments would be particularly helpful to provide
supervisors with valuable perspective and enrichment on best
practices in knowledge management throughout the federal
government. All of these efforts would help foster a federal
workplace in which veteran employees more readily offer better and
more innovative ways to develop and to convey sense-making
capabilities and vital institutional knowledge to succeeding
generations of employees.
Values and Respect
In Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging
Workforce, David W. DeLong asserts that consistency in values
and respect for the contributions of employees within an
organization represents a fundamental part of a social environment
that fosters effective knowledge retention practices:
Asking professionals and managers to share the intellectual
capital, which is a primary source of their value to the
organization, requires considerable trust on the part of the
employee. Decisions to share what they have learned will be
determined by whether the organization has earned that trust by
demonstrating respect for its employeesIn addition to trust, a
culture should also be assessed for the degree to which it
encourages individual development
In fact, the most critical characteristic of a culture supporting
retention is that its norms and practices be completely aligned
with the performance values needed to inspire knowledge
sharing...When employees see a disconnect between the values touted
by leadership and the values actually reflected in management
practices, they conclude that the espoused values of knowledge
sharing and learning are not taken seriously by the organization,
and managements credibility is undermined.
As suggested by DeLong, a fundamental impediment to effective
retention of institutional knowledge begins with perceived
inconsistencies in performance values between veteran employees and
senior management. Such inconsistencies impair trust and foster
doubts about managements willingness to develop meaningful
knowledge-retention strategies.
Other researchers find that social context within an organization
affects the perception of success that employees experience in the
accumulation and sharing of knowledge. A supportive culture that
provides clear messages and rewards for effective knowledge
maintenance and dissemination fosters employee expectations to
share information and to learn from others.
A knowledge management culture must be supported by clear senior
executive performance goals that are tied to the achievement of
measurable outcomes such as succession planning, mentoring
programs, expert systems, and communities of practice. Such a
performance management system would be materially aided by annual
employee assessment and evaluation of senior executive performance
to accomplish knowledge management objectives on behalf of the
agency.
OPM Employee Viewpoint Survey
It is important for an agency to objectively comprehend its
strengths and weaknesses concerning knowledge management and
employee engagement, and that is why OPM created an employee survey
instrument. Both the 2008 OPM Human Capital Survey and the
reconstituted and renamed 2010 OPM Employee Viewpoint Survey will
help federal employees to assess the actual knowledge management
practices of senior management.
This includes the existence and success of succession planning
programs and the degree to which employees are actively involved
and engaged in the transfer of institutional knowledge through
programs such as formal mentoring, organizational storytelling, and
communities of practice. A more specific focus on measuring best
practices would help bring improvement to an agencys knowledge
management capabilities and the fuller engagement of career
employees.
Refinements to future OPM Employee Viewpoint Surveys that more
fully consider employees assessments of existing knowledge
management practices, processes, and values with the workplace,
federal agencies, and OPM would put federal agencies in a better
informed position to understand agency strengths and limitations
and to model successful knowledge transfer programs that could
include incentives such as enhanced funding for agencies that
ranked highest in knowledge management effectiveness in accordance
with established criteria.
These criteria could include creating succession planning for
nonmanagement and frontline manager positions, innovation awards
for employees ideas on knowledge transfer, and consistent and
effective employee-management collaboration in implementing best
practices in knowledge retention and transfer. As a consequence of
true assessment and valid recognition with federal agencies for
their knowledge management practices, veteran employees would be
far more challenged, respected, and engaged in the greater
collective mission of preserving institutional knowledge and in
creating more effective knowledge management systems.
Collectively, these suggested measures emphasize the necessity for
agencies to be mindful of the social context that support
employees in learning, teaching, and applying the lessons of the
past to future challenges. Organizational cultural support for a
learning environment and sound knowledgemanagement practices
require the need for a multilevel agency approach to integrating
career employees, first-line supervisors, and senior executives in
a collaborative learning process.
This can greatly assist federal agencies to maintain and enhance
the values of continual learning, effective knowledge retention,
and knowledge management and to gain a passion for imparting an
enhanced sense-making capability for future generations of federal
employees for the benefit of their agencies missions.