HR in Knowledge Era

HR in Knowledge Era 

Written by Dr. Gandham Sri Rama Krishna

 Contributed one chapter title “HR in Knowledge Era” in the Edited Book entitled “Role of Knowledge Management in Modern Era” Published in the year 2013 by Paramount Publishing House, New Delhi. ISBN: 978-93-82163-91-6.  

“Knowledge is the only meaningful resource today”

è Peter F. Druker 

Introduction

Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization have influenced all segments of society. While the impact is minimal in some sectors, it is widespread in others. Business organizations in India, therefore, not only face competition from global players, but more so from the domestic players. Therefore, organizations need to be more innovative, competitive, and proactive in their endeavours. There is an urgent need to anticipate, advocate, and accelerate the change processes in the business environment and act accordingly. The gaps that demand attention in organizations, especially from HR functionaries, are talent gaps, knowledge gaps, and strategy gaps. It becomes essential, then, to redefine and transform HR practices from the traditional reactive approach to those that can anticipate business needs and provide solutions for them.

Knowledge is the full utilization of information and data, compelled with the potential of people’s skills, competencies, ideas, intuitions, commitments and motivations. Knowledge is more relevant to sustained business then capital and land. Nevertheless it remains the most neglected asset.

A holistic view considers knowledge to be present in ideas, judgments, talents, root causes, relationships, perspectives and concepts. Knowledge is stored in the individual brain or encoded in organizational processes, documents, products, services, facilities and systems. Knowledge is the result of learning which provides the only sustainable competitive advantage. Knowledge is action, focused innovation, pooled expertise, special relationships and alliances. Knowledge is value-added behavior and actions.

Knowledge management is an audit of intellectual assets that highlights unique sources, critical functions and potential bottlenecks which hinder knowledge flows to the point of use. It protects intellectual assets from decay, seeks opportunities to enhance decisions, services and products through adding intelligence, increasing value and providing flexibility. Knowledge management complements and enhances other organizational initiatives such as total quality management (TQM) business process re-engineering (BPR) and organizational learning, providing a new and urgent focus to sustain competitive position.  

Knowledge management comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experience. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizations as processes or practices.

Knowledge management efforts typically focus an organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and continuous improvement of the organization. Knowledge management efforts overlap with organizational learning and may be distinguished from that by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge. 

Knowledge Management - A Key Emerging Area

·        According to Webster’s Dictionary, Knowledge is the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association. Knowledge refers  to ideas or understanding which an individual possesses, and those that are utilized effectively for goal realization.

·        Knowledge Management is defined as the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, and resenting information in a way that improves employees’ comprehension in a specific area of interest.

A simple definition of knowledge management is that it is ‘about connecting people to people and people to information to create competitive advantage’. In other words, it is the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling, and presenting information in a way that improves an employee’s comprehension in a specific area of interest. It helps an organization to gain insight and understanding from its own experiences.  Knowledge management is first and foremost a management discipline that treats intellectual capital as a managed asset.

Important Functions of Knowledge Management

Knowledge management functions are associated with different departments in different organizations. It may be combined with quality, sales, HR, innovations, operations etc and are likely to be determined by the knowledge management motivation of that particular organization. 

Knowledge management is the collection of processes that govern the creation of knowledge. Knowledge management is concerned of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge, and the utilization of knowledge.

Knowledge management means the ability to manage knowledge another term is information management, this term came about when people realized that information is a resource that can and needs to be managed to be useful in an organization. Organizations are now starting to look at ‘knowledge’ as a resource as well.

i)                   Knowledge Analysis: It is necessary step for the ability to manage knowledge and always its usefulness, its weaknesses and its appropriateness within the organization.

ii)                 Knowledge Planning: When an organization has a grip on its knowledge, it will be able to plan for the future. An organization will now be able to develop a multi - year knowledge plan that defines how the organization will develop its knowledge resources things training and development programmed.                      

Dimensions of Knowledge Management

A dimension of knowledge distinguishes between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. 

ð Tacit Knowledge: It represents internalized knowledge that an individual may not be consciously aware of, such as how he or she accomplishes particular tasks.

ð Explicit Knowledge: It represents knowledge that the individual holds consciously in mental focus, in a form that can easily be communicated to others.

Hayes and Walsham describe content and relational perspectives of knowledge and knowledge management as two fundamentally different epistemological perspectives. Knowledge is easily stored because it may be codified, while the relational perspective recognizes the contextual and relational aspects of knowledge which can make knowledge difficult to share outside of the specific location where the knowledge is developed.

Process of Knowledge Management

                The process of knowledge management covers information (both internal as well as external), experiences of the employees, and details of the systems/ process. The aim is to empower employees with the required information and knowledge in order to improve their performance and productivity. The process of knowledge management consists of other sub-processes starting from identifying knowledge to retrieving and reusing organizational knowledge.

Knowledge Management Strategies

Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during and after. knowledge management – related activities. Different organizations have tried various knowledge captures incentives, including making content submission mandatory and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans. Considerable controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no consensus has emerged. 

i). Push Strategy: The strategy to knowledge management involves actively managing knowledge. In such an instance, individuals strive to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge repository, such as a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to the repository. This is also commonly known as the codification approach to knowledge management.

ii). Pull Strategy: The strategy to know involves individuals making knowledge requests of experts associated with a particular subject on an ad hoc basis. In such an instance, expert individuals can provide their insights to the particular person needing this. This is also commonly known as the personalization approach to knowledge management

Knowledge Management System

Knowledge management system refers to a system for managing knowledge in organizations for supporting creation, capture, storage and dissemination of information. It can comprise a part   of a knowledge management initiative. The idea of knowledge management system is to enable employees to have ready access to the organization’s documented based of facts, sources of information, and solutions. For example, a typical claim justifying the creation of a knowledge management system might run something like this: an engineer could know the metallurgical composition of an alloy that reduces sound in gear systems. Sharing this information organization wide can lead to more effective engine design and it could also lead to ideas for new improved equipment.                             

Role of Knowledge Managers

Knowledge manager’s role has evolved drastically from that of one involving the creation and maintenance of knowledge repositories to one that involves influencing the culture of an organization toward improved knowledge sharing, reuse, learning, collaboration and innovation.

Knowledge managers have varied backgrounds ranging from information sciences to business management. An effective knowledge manager is likely to be someone who has a versatile skills portfolio and is comfortable with the concepts of organizational  behavior and culture, processes, branding and marketing and collaborative technology.

Managing Knowledge Workers

The globalization of work and continuing advances in technology are changing the nature of the workforce. Information specialists called knowledge workers are equipped to maintain and expand the technological leadership role in the next century are replacing blue-collar workers.

The profile of knowledge workers is completely different from that of other types of workforce. Knowledge economy derives its strengths from use of knowledge of its HR. Human resource in knowledge economy are known as knowledge workers. Though the concept of knowledge workers may include all HR who are primarily engaged in getting things done through the use of knowledge.   

Knowledge workers are also called gold-collar workers, who are sometimes known by their professional specialists, for   example, lawyer, doctor, programmer, information system designer, information specialist, librarian, teacher, and scientist. Knowledge workers are also known for their special characteristics. They are HR who can analyse, synthesize, and evaluate information and use that information to solve various problems.

The way of describing knowledge workers is by their skills and abilities: people who are highly educated, creative, computer literate, and have portable skills that make it possible for them to move anywhere their intelligence of talent are needed. The employees in the IT industry are the best examples befitting this concept.

Knowledge workers basically use their intellect to transform ideas, products, services, and processes. They own the knowledge, utilize it, and still own it. Their main value to an organization is their ability to gather and analyse information and make decisions that will benefit the company. They are also involved in a continuous learning process as they are aware that knowledge has a limited shelf life.

Knowledge workers tend to be different from other workers; they have certain unique personality and occupational characteristics. Because of unique characteristics of knowledge workers, managing them effectively poses serious challenges before HR professionals. Following characteristics of knowledge workers are important from HRM point of view:

a)     Challenging jobs.

b)    Autonomy

c)     Immediate feedback and reward

d)    Professional commitment

e)     Lifestyle

Based on the above characteristics of knowledge workers, HR professionals have to; (i) recruit and select those knowledge workers who fit with overall job requirements. Only technical competence of knowledge workers should not be taken into consideration.  Realizing the importance of  knowledge economy and the role of knowledge workers therein many companies in knowledge economy have changed the name of their HR department to knowledge management department.      

The important aspect is that the performance of an individual, organization, industry, or country in acquiring and applying knowledge will increasingly become the key competitive factor for success and income. In the long run, societies will emerge as knowledge societies. 

New technologies, which are taking over many of the routine tasks performed in the workplace, are directing workers towards the more complex tasks that require thinking, understanding, assimilating, new knowledge, and problem solving. The time-saving aspects of new technologies not only free employees for more sophisticated tasks but also increase pressure on them to develop new skills that will enable them to participate in the knowledge revolution that reflects the changing nature of the workplace.

Research indicates that organizations hire knowledge workers and leave them alone. They do not employ quality measurements, Six Sigma, re-engineering, etc.,  or formally attempt to observe the flow  of work. Further, they are not benchmarked, and there is no accountability for the money and time spent on their activities. Even if these assessments are attempted, the measurement yardsticks are varied and subtle. 

In knowledge organizations, however, it is each worker’s knowledge and intelligence that combine to form the means of production. The organization cannot control or own that. A worker can leave at any time, taking the means of production with him or her. Companies need to learn to look at employees as assets to be valued rather than as costs. The value in a knowledge company lies in the minds of the employees more than it does in the machinery on the factory floor.

Knowledge workers are essentially investors. They make discretionary choices as to how and when their energies and skills may be invested in their companies. The decision to invest or apply the skill may be contingent on (a) ability, (b) motivation, and (c) opportunity available.

Organizations across different sectors are attempting to identify ways to manage knowledge workers. The methods being used include flexible work hours and environment, accommodation and furnishing arrangements for the employees and their families, opportunities for overseas scholarship, presentation of papers in conferences or workshops, holidays with family members, celebration of  events etc. 

Another vital requirement in managing the knowledge worker is developing an internal infrastructure in the communications area. This can be facilitated by email to all by way of virtual private net-workers and cohesive distributed systems and having a standard organizational vocabulary. Any piece of information or direction can be communicated instantly. The knowledge worker would gain by this process and it would enhance their self-esteem.

Peter F. Druker stated that a knowledge worker shines in a team. Employee teams may be encouraged to meet, discuss, exchange, and build ideas, with no boundaries and constraints of operations. Coaching and mentoring may be the process involved. An open environment, easily accessible information or database, clarity in performance expectations and goals, and immediate feedback would enhance the self-esteem of the knowledge worker.

Boosting the motivation levels of knowledge workers is critical to their performance. It is observed that knowledge workers tend to openly communicate the meaning of their work and are inclined towards information sharing. The knowledge workers appreciates autonomy. They prefer to make their own decisions within their sphere of competence. They seek the jobs where abilities get manifested. The organizations may also take up wide participative management programmes, strengthen their communication channels, and make resources available for their employees. To provide a framework that would enhance the motivational levels of the knowledge worker. However, since knowledge workers will dominate the future workforce in organizations, the management must concentrate on how to retain, maintain, and motivate them.