Encourage collaboration and teamwork with a recognition program that is effective and enjoyable!
Book a demo now to take advantage of some incredible offers!
A guide to knowledge sharing and a detailed explanation of how small teams can maximize their ideas for improved productivity.
.png)
Have you ever caught yourself knowing random but valuable information you usually won’t get from your field?
Amazing, right?
As a business grows and develops, the benefits of knowledge sharing become increasingly evident.
A Workplace Knowledge and Productivity report shows that about 42% of institutional information is unique to individuals. This means that 42% of coworkers cannot work proficiently when there’s a workforce shortage.
Sharing knowledge with team members ensures that critical knowledge is dispersed within the company, not only a select few. It also gives the company a competitive edge, and valuable information isn’t consequently lost due to staff exits.
Knowledge sharing is also particularly important for small teams. They are characterized by limited resources; hence every individual expertise is crucial to the overall team's success.
This article will explore how to promote knowledge-sharing within small teams and highlight practical strategies.
Let’s start by breaking down knowledge sharing.
Knowledge sharing is the process of actively disseminating tacit and documented information among team members. And it provides a means of exchanging essential information across the workforce.
Tacit knowledge is when information is acquired from experience, while knowledge obtained from documents is explicit.
Knowledge sharing has become the key to staying afloat as the business world evolves. Sharing knowledge with team members equips employees with resources to perform effectively, boosting productivity.
Moreso, cultivating and maintaining a culture of knowledge-sharing in the workplace is an excellent way of improving the performance of remote teams. One major challenge virtual teams encounter is poor communication and collaboration among team members. These obstacles can be overcome by promoting knowledge sharing.
The basic principle underlying knowledge sharing in small teams and for organizations, in general, is to make crucial information readily available to employees who need it.
Advantages of knowledge sharing include:
In small teams, including; virtual teams, innovation teams, and project teams, knowledge sharing provides an avenue for team members to share ideas and collaborate.
Active exchange of information within the organization helps improve employees' efficiency and effectiveness.
Generally, knowledge gained via social learning activities is retained more easily. So, it’s best practice for companies to facilitate knowledge sharing via social learning platforms.
Assembly has various knowledge-sharing strategies. Learn more here.
When employees exit an organization, there's the risk of valuable expertise and experience being lost. Having an effective knowledge-sharing culture helps to avoid such loss.
Routine knowledge-sharing sessions allow you to identify employees who frequently contribute impactful ideas. And these employees can train and guide their colleagues.
A knowledge-sharing culture also breeds innovation in the workplace. It enables the team to collaborate more creatively. For instance, regularly engaging employees can highlight other business areas that can be explored.
Well-informed employees translate to better customer experience. An engaged employee provides the right answers to customers. Engaged employees feel valued and strive towards improving customer relationships.
The best way to improve knowledge-sharing within the team is by applying knowledge-sharing best practices. These practices include:
Without good communication, employees feel less valued and may put in less effort at work.
People communicate differently, and having virtual teams need intentional management. So, small teams can improve their productivity by eliminating communication barriers among team members.
While some team members prefer speaking in public, others might share ideas via emails or documents. One way of reducing the communication gap is by creating multiple information channels. This enables employees to share ideas via channels best suited to them.
Sharing knowledge with team members can be formal or informal. What's more important is that employees share information freely without intimidation.
During regular catch-ups, team members can talk about their current projects and highlight areas where they need help, allowing employees to help one another using personal expertise.
As a way of boosting interest and participation, use catchy names for knowledge-sharing sessions. This also improves anticipation and increases engagement.
If you need help setting up a session, Assembly is a fantastic option for setting up a seamless session. Book a demo today.
There needs to be a plan in place to ensure the team gets the benefits of knowledge sharing. A well-detailed plan must be drawn out for obtaining and storing information in a retrievable format.
The team can improve knowledge sharing by rewarding employees who frequently contribute fresh insights. Rewards can be in the form of bonuses or free lunch coupons and can be given at the end of a working year or after catch-ups.
Incentives serve as positive reinforcement. Rewarding employees who make efforts to share information and explain complex concepts keeps the team motivated. It also inspires other employees to contribute ideas.
Although there are significant barriers to knowledge sharing, there are some common limitations. They include:
An organization must develop ways to encourage knowledge sharing amongst team members. These include:
Knowledge silos can be counteracted when teams work together.
Collaboration is possible when a solid knowledge-sharing culture encourages employees to use their strengths and expertise to upskill one another instead of hoarding them to be judged superior to their peers.
Peer discussion groups are safe and conducive environments that prioritize learning as a group.
They effectively provide the team with a rich supply of productive insights. And serve to enhance the professional development of team members.
Mentoring relationships are a very effective means of facilitating knowledge sharing in a team.
Older team members should be given the responsibility of guiding the newer members of the team. This ensures the transfer of relevant skills and experience.
Information not stored in a retrievable format can be completely lost.
Have a company policy that requires employees to store information that will benefit the rest of the team in shared files. These shared files are then uploaded to a central repository.
This central repository should be continuously updated with relevant information and easily accessible. Productivity increases when employees can easily access critical information when needed.
Creating central information hubs is easier with the tools such as Assembly, Google Drive, Slack, and Trello.
A knowledge-sharing strategy is an action plan that clearly defines how a company intends to manage and disseminate data and information for improved productivity. Successful knowledge-sharing strategies are closely related to the organization's goals and objectives.
A Knowledge sharing strategy helps to:
Strategies to enhance knowledge sharing include:
This implies that a company is very intentional about training new hires. During onboarding training, new hires should be informed about the knowledge-sharing culture practiced in the organization.
In addition, they should be aware of the available knowledge-sharing platforms and admitted into the company's mentoring program.
A culture of continuous learning prevents the scarcity of ideas within the team. This enables employees to stay in touch with the latest industry trends making knowledge sharing more efficient.
Encourage team members to attend seminars, conferences, and workshops to boost their skills and knowledge.
Ideas and plans are mere fancy words if they aren't executed.
A leader whose primary responsibility is building knowledge-sharing initiatives should be appointed within a team. This helps to make cross-team collaborations easier and more effective.
The tool used significantly impacts the outcome of the process and, by extension, the organization's productivity.
You must select tools that ease workflow, enable quick storage and retrieval of information. Most importantly, use tools that facilitate collaboration.
Every organization that intends to be successful must build a knowledge-sharing culture. According to a 2020 survey by Deloitte, approximately 75% of the companies surveyed agreed on the importance of knowledge sharing.
Knowledge sharing is the cornerstone of innovation. And ideas don't make inventions if they aren't let out.
Enact the process of knowledge sharing in your team using Assembly. Book a demo today.
Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.
Explore Guide
Yes, at Assembly, security is a top priority. Each quarter, we have ongoing security work that is everyone’s responsibility. While we maintain a strong security posture, it was important for us to prove to our customers that we do everything we claim to do. This led us to pursue a SOC 2 Type II report that would provide evidence of our compliance with industry gold-standard security practice.
There is study after study showing that employee recognition leads to increased engagement. This in return creates an environment where employees are happier and more motivated which increase productivity and reduces voluntary turnover significantly. In order to filled critical roles, companies tend to spend nearly twice the value of an annual salary. Assembly is an investment in your employees that supports your bottom line.
Yes, we will offer contracts for companies with longer-term agreements to help larger customers have more certainty around future costs.
The minimum agreement term is a 12-month subscription.
We do and for FREE! Any new customer needing further support to get started with Assembly to ensure you're set up for success can request custom onboarding support. Improving your employee experience is about much more than just using our amazing software; it’s about transforming your business to create a workplace that people love. That’s much easier to do with the personal support and advice from our passionate people experts.
Yes. We offer a completely free plan for up to 50 team members. This plan is intended for teams or organizations that are looking to get started with an employee engagement tool. Keep in mind, this plan is limited in features.
All customers can open an Assembly account for free and get started without a credit card. Then you can change plans as necessary.
At the time of redemption (when your employees exchange their points for a paid reward) you'll pay face value. If a reward is a $10 Amazon gift card, your cost will be $10. All paid rewards are billed for on a monthly basis.
The good news is that you don't have to pay for rewards upfront because we only charge you when points are redeemed, not when they're earned.
We offer discounts or educational or charitable organizations. In order to secure a discount, you'll first need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
For all other organizations, we are willing to consider longer-term agreements in exchange for discounts. To set up annual plans or longer, you will need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a month to month plan, you can go here and cancel anytime. If you're having concerns or need help setting up your account for success, you can always book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a longer-term custom plan, you'll need to reach out to your customer support specialist to cancel your account or email us at support@joinassembly.com.
Great question! You can customize your core values to match your organization's to boost and track alignment. You can change your currency from the 🏆 emoji (our default) to any emoji of your choice. You can swap our logo for your own. You can also set up company culture rewards such as, "Lunch with the CEO," "Buy a book on us," and so much more!
While we recommend a peer to peer set up where anyone in your organization can give or receive recognition, you can set up Assembly however you want. If you need to limit the people who can give or receive recognition, that's perfectly fine and can be done from your Admin, here.
Assembly connects to the tools your employees use every day to offer an easy, seamless experience with minimal change management.
Assembly has integrations with HCM/HRIS systems like ADP, Google, Office 365, and Slack. We also integrate with communication tools like Slack and Teams so you and your employees can access Assembly wherever they work now.
That depends on the company's permissions set up. That said, over 90% of the employees on Assembly's platform are recognized on a monthly basis. That means nearly every employee across all of our customers are receiving regular recognition from their peers, managers, or leadership. We're extremely proud of this.
They are not required. You can use Assembly without having rewards set up. However, we don't recommend it if you intend to have a high adoption and usage rate. You can always keep the costs down by offering internal culture rewards that are fulfilled by you internally.
No, you can remove allowances from anyone or everyone. It's up to you but we do recommend using points whether they're worth a real dollar value or not. Companies that use points have a much higher engagement rate even if those points don't exchange for real dollars.
Please schedule time with an expert and we will help you to get all your questions answered
.png)
.jpg)