Creating the culture of “Engage, Innovate & Excel”

To hold a leadership position and grow continuously, an organization need to be able to capitalize/ build upon its core competencies & innovate regularly to be a sustainable organisation. These core competencies have been primarily in the form of Knowledge/ skills possessed by its workforce, considering its vulnerability in terms of people switching organizations, and retiring from the workplace makes it mandatory for the organisations to have a robust process of engagement of the workforce throughout their life cycle which ensures that culture of “Innovation” becomes the DNA of the organization and hence leading the organization & employees to Excel.

The purpose of this paper is to present the innovative practices that can be adopted by the Human Resources (HR) team in making the best use of our Human Asset for competitive advantage. It touches upon the various aspect of building a culture of Engagement, Innovate & Excel for knowledge Management.

It is evident that an organisation’s capacity to improve existing skills and learn new ones continuously is the most needed competitive advantage in the recent context. This change is caused by many factors, with the most obvious ones being the economic crisis, demographic and social changes, globalization and an increased competitive landscape. This is leading to a change in the face of workplace learning and in turn new role for the learning & development team in the organization. Only the creation of knowledge will not help effort towards ensuring the knowledge is retained, managed & being transferred on a regular base will help.

An effective approach of Knowledge Management in the company will enhance the sustainability of learning and development and enable the learning to have a greater impact. If the company does not have an effective approach to knowledge management many hours could be wasted because the knowledge in the organisation is not easily available and the same information is searched, generated and duplicated many times.

Having an effective knowledge management approach allows learning and development to focus on the unique aspects of learning that creates a competitive advantage.

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The focus should be on Knowledge Management and not necessarily on knowledge gain only. Learning & Development function needs to adopt the comprehensive approach of Knowledge management typically aimed towards the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge.

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The learning & Development function needs to ensure the process of capturing, distributing and effectively using knowledge is in place at the organisation.? As with most processes/ systems at the workplace, there is no simple rules, but if you build the following elements into the Learning & Development function for knowledge Management, chances of success at delivering business value is greatly enhanced. The elements of Knowledge management ?in any organization can be ?organized in the following 3 clusters:

1) LEARN: - The L&D function needs to create an opportunity for employees to consistently learn and sharpen their skill set on a consistent base. Certain elements, systems and processes that may help in facilitating an optimal learning environment is mentioned below helping in building the learning culture:-

Internal Subject Matter Experts: - Create organizational knowledge by leveraging upon the tacit knowledge of subject matter experts through teaching and coaching. L&D team should set up a forum where line managers/ leaders have subject matter expertise are contributing in competency building.

·Building the in-house Trainer pool: - Skill development for the internal facilitators by providing aids like training the trainer certification, assistance in content development and coaching and mentoring. Having the internal experts as facilitators for the in-house designed purpose solves the dual purpose of bringing more & more leaders into the classroom room sharing their tacit knowledge with the young workforce? and contributing immensely to capability building for the future

Non-Stop Learning (Learning Management System):- The current era is of learning at one's fingertips. A learning organization helps build a talent pipeline and makes the business sustainable beyond competition. Organisation needs a kind of platform that should enhance and enrich the way employees perform – by learning better and learning smarter.? L&D functions have realized the importance of e-learning & impact of blended learning in enhancing the program effectiveness and its range which is why more and more organisations are opting for Learning Management Systems ( LMS).

2) SHARE: - it is essential to create a "Knowledge Sharing Culture" as part of a Knowledge Management initiative. The old paradigm was “knowledge is power”. Today it needs to be explicitly understood that “sharing knowledge is power”.

If people understand that sharing their knowledge helps them do their jobs more effectively; helps them retain their jobs; helps them in their personal development and career progression; rewards them for getting things done (not for blind sharing); and brings more personal recognition, then knowledge sharing will become a reality.

L&D functions in an organization should consistently look for various avenues to create a forum for employees so that a culture of sharing can become a reality. Technology may play a crucial transformational role and is a key part of changing the corporate culture to a knowledge-sharing one. Institutionalization of the following forums at organisational level will contribute in creating a culture of sharing:-

Community of Practise (CoP) :- It’s a forum in which a group of people is brought together by a common concern, a set of opportunities. Problems and a desire to learn and deepen their knowledge by interacting continuously. Community benefited through value addition by directly collaborating, using one another and outside resources, to learn and teach each other. ?There are various benefits of having successful CoPs, they help in driving strategy, starting new lines of business, solving problems quickly, transferring best practices, and in turn developing professional skills.

Organizations like Daimler Chrysler, Hewlett Packard, IBM, World Bank, Tata Motors, etc. have successfully implemented Cops. To enhance the impact of learning and to meet its business objective have created a CoP for key initiatives wherein Learners and SMEs are registered and interacting regularly, This forum helps learn to get in touch with SMEs post to the program and can raise their queries in line with newly acquired skills. These forums also help in a way to create performance support to ensure learning is transferred back to a job.

Library & Information Support (Knowledge Support):- The Library & Information Support team can become a big boon for the organization if it is aligned with the L&D initiative.

While the business world is changing in the new knowledge economy and digital age, libraries of all types are undergoing drastic changes also. In many ways it is a technology that has made knowledge-sharing a reality – in the past, it was impossible to share knowledge or work collaboratively with co-workers around the globe. Today it is a reality. ?The new role of libraries in the 21st century needs to be as a learning and knowledge centre for their users.

As a learning organization, libraries should provide strong leadership in knowledge management. Learning & Information support plays a key role in driving knowledge retention as well as updation on the latest changes by regular knowledge dissemination. Their role has changed from Managing the database to sharing the knowledge with a workforce as per their need like info alerts related to the industry/ segment, sharing the knowledge capsules with different groups as per their developmental need and contributing to leadership competency development as well.

3) COLLABORATE: - The L&D function needs to create an opportunity for employees to consistently learn and sharpen their skill set on consistent base through collaboration. It helps in creating an environment where employees put all and any baggage aside, bring their best selves to the table and focus on the common goals. L&D plays a pivotal role in creating such forums, Organisations can have various forums (mentioned below) have been created to ensure the employees collaborate. Illustrating a few of these forums:-

Learning Cluster (Collaborative Learning):- The Learning cluster provides a highly interactive platform for employees to get together, interact, and inspire each other by sharing innovative ideas for further discussion and application. It also provides a highly interactive platform for employees to get together, interact, and inspire each other by sharing innovative ideas for further discussion and application.

L&D function needs to create these clusters at the department/ division or respective factories level to ensure more focused discussion on current/ relevant issues/ challenges pertaining to them get discussed and solved. The speciality of the forum is that it is managed by the Business, HR & L&D teams and acts as a catalyst for ensuring the learning cluster operates as intended.

Organisations can benefit immensely benefited with learning clusters; this forum has helped in building L&D alignment with business. It also contributed to resolving the repetitive issues with the learning clusters input.

Informal Knowledge Sharing Forum (Xpert Hour) : - It’s a forum for sharing knowledge. It consists of a series of lectures of one or two hrs duration by world-class experts, both internal and from the industry & academic world to share their expert knowledge with members of organization. Considering that time is at a premium, Xpert Hour aims to provide quality learning in a byte-size format for all the members of an organization without causing much disruption in their daily work schedule.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: - As the workforce demography is changing with more & more youth/ younger populations taking over, the importance of social networking sites cannot be ignored for long. These forums can be game changers for businesses and even can contribute significantly in the engagement of the workforce if it is channelled as per organizational requirements. These forums have now the ability to reach out & communicate with the groups as well as on a personal level daily and as per requirement. Many organizations have created forums like Facebook groups, Linked In, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc. to complete their organizational requirement. They have created different work groups on these forums where they discuss, deliberate, and come to a consensus on various issues despite their distant locations. It also helps in the speed of decision-making.

There are definite rewards for a learning and development function with a strong knowledge Management based on business values and strategy, legislation, good governance, effective management and a robust competency framework. Learning & Development has the responsibility of not only creating knowledge but to ensuring Knowledge is being managed as an organizational resource. With the initiative as highlighted above & implemented many more organizations can successfully embark on the journey of knowledge management.? ?