Role
of HR in Institutionalizing
Knowledge Management in a Company
By Kuruganti
Srinivasa Murty
Head
Knowledge Management
Hindustan Lever Limited
 Introduction
HR has a pivotal
role in the KM movement. Key human resources (HR) processes --
corporate education, performance management and nurturing (sharing,
doing and caring) culture -- have a key role in the development
of the knowledge-based enterprise.
Before we discuss
the role of HR in institutionalizing KM in an organization, we
will outline briefly, what KM is all about. We will illustrate
this with an example of one of our KM initiatives in Hindustan
Lever Limited. (HLL) -- The packaging community, so that seasoned
HR professionals could come up with their own additional ideas
/ views on how best to harness HR processes to successfully implement
KM in an organization.
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What is
Knowledge Management?
Sustainable competitive
advantage a firm has comes from what it "collectively knows,"
how efficiently it uses what it knows and how readily it "acquires
and uses new knowledge," in short by becoming a Knowledge
Driven Organization. Knowledge Management (KM) provides an
enabling framework to derive this advantage. It helps institutionalize
processes to fully leverage the "collective knowledge"
in an organization.
Knowledge management
refers to all systematic activities for creation and sharing
of knowledge so that knowledge can be used for the success of
the organization. KM processes provide a framework for connecting
people to people and people to information, to develop and share
distilled learnings and best practices.
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What is
Knowledge?
When we refer to
knowledge, most of us mainly tend to think of the codified and
documented knowledge like patents, policy manuals, databases,
white papers etc. While this "explicit knowledge"
is important, what is even more important and value adding from
the perspective of competitive advantage is the "tacit
knowledge," which is embedded in the minds of people.
This tacit knowledge is intuitive, contextual, linked to experience,
past memories and is difficult to codify, document and communicate.
It is estimated that this tacit knowledge constitutes between
70 and 80 percent of all knowledge in an organization and is
difficult to identify, quantify and convert into real value,
unless we adopt a structured approach to manage our knowledge.
Knowledge management techniques and processes provide such a
structured approach to explicate a significant part of his tacit
knowledge, document in knowledge repositories and also share
in teams, through intensive dialogue and discussion.
Explicit knowledge
-- is the domain of managers of corporate intellectual assets
in R&D and corporate universities / learning centers / academies.
On the other hand, tacit knowledge, embedded in the minds of
people, is the domain of managers of people, who are the independent
holders of this knowledge capital and constitute the storehouse
of a company's intellectual capital.
As you can see from
the above, Knowledge Management is first and foremost a people
based discipline.
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Why Knowledge
Management?
In this competitive
knowledge economy, our most valuable asset is the knowledge asset.
It is often said that, in this economy it is not what "we
own," but " we know" that would give us the competitive
advantage. Baruch Lev reports that today's investments are 6
to 1 in an organization's intangible assets -- 90 percent in
such knowledge-intensive industries as Microsoft and America
On Line (AOL). We must therefore, quickly learn the strategies
and management techniques of Knowledge Age. In short, we must
adopt practice of knowledge management to strengthen our competitive
advantage.
KM provides an enabling
framework to leverage "collective knowledge." When
KM becomes "the way we work," it helps us deliver on
strategic priorities and business goals -- growth, innovation,
speed of response, quality of response, faster time to market,
strengthen organizational learning, protect functional and operational
excellence in a dis-aggregated organizational structure.
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What does
leveraging "collective knowledge" involve?
- Working in collaborative
teams, capturing and sharing knowledge and delivering business
excellence.
- Developing and
sharing "best practices."
- Faster replication
of innovations through faster movement of knowledge through the
organization.
- Acquisition and
sharing of "new knowledge."
- Creating an environment
that is comfortable to the idea of openness, knowledge sharing,
risk of failure as well as rewards for success.
- Managing organizational
learning.
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An overview
of Knowledge Processes
The key knowledge
management processes are:
- Linking people
to people in teams through formal / informal structures, for
them to effectively share knowledge.
A Community of Practice
(CoP) is one such useful structure. In large organizations with
geographical spread, multiple business units, businesses, organizational
silos are likely to constrain effective knowledge sharing and
leveraging of collective knowledge of the enterprise. Communities
of practice (knowledge communities or teams) formed around core
competencies of the company help overcome this constraint.
A CoP is a team
of people who are practitioners of a well-defined knowledge domain
(Packaging, engineering, sales etc.) who come together to capture,
create and share relevant knowledge, in pursuit of business excellence.
Such a team is empowered to develop best practices, maintain
the knowledge repositories, and develop and deliver relevant
training programs to build the capability in the knowledge domain.
- Linking people
to information / knowledge repositories / best practices - Intranets
with efficient search engines provide an effective way to connect
people to knowledge repositories with the capability for easy
retrieval of needed information.
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An illustrative
example of Knowledge Management initiatives:
HLL's
Packaging Network
Opportunities /
Challenges
Packaging in our
company is very important, both for providing protection to the
product in transit and storage as well as its contribution to
pack presentation / brand image. Total packaging cost incurred
by the company is very significant, across various Businesses.
Packaging professionals are divided by category structure (organizational
silos). The challenge is to deliver functional and operational
excellence in this divisional organizational structure, without
being constrained by the organizational silos of the formal structure.
How do we make sure that the collective knowledge of the packaging
professionals in the company is fully leveraged by the packaging
professionals in each business, to add value to his business,
through problem solving as well as innovations to reduce cost
and or improve functionality?
Our response:
We formed a knowledge
community, consisting of the packaging development managers and
officers and packaging buyers of various HLL businesses. Some
of the key suppliers were also invited to be part of the extended
team. This Packaging Community's charter was to improve speed
and quality of innovations, implement Packaging Technology lead
cost effectiveness and practice packaging synergy across businesses
through harmonization, learning and knowledge sharing.
The team is very
focused on learning, sharing knowledge and effective implementation
of the team's charter. Knowledge is shared in a structured way
-- each team member wearing two hats -- one of business unit
/ category focus and another of Packaging Technology focus. The
team meets once in two months for structured knowledge sharing
and monitoring progress of implementation of the charter. This
has enabled systematic implementation of innovation projects
and preparation of best practice documents. The team learns through
proactive sharing of successes as well as failures.
The basic approach
and methodology adopted by the team:
Develop clarity
on business expectations from the packaging team, understand
of Packaging Skills Chain, improve understanding of Consumer
needs through participation in consumer clinics, keep abreast
of developments in Packaging Technology nationally and internationally,
undertake brain storming and idea generation on a regular basis.
- The team effectively
networks with in HLL and Globally within Unilever (the parent
company).
- The team identified
well-defined knowledge blocks in Packaging area and appointed
sub-teams to specialize / lead in each of the knowledge blocks.
The sub-teams will help the total team to keep up-to-date with
technology and strengthen the packaging skill base in the company.
- The team from time
to time organizes "knowledge workshops" with the core
team and the extended team to generate new ideas and opportunities.
It focuses on capability building through continuous skill mapping,
gap analysis and need based training.
- The team developed
an Intranet application with collaborative working tools, to
facilitate knowledge sharing on a continuous basis, in between
the face to face meetings. This Intranet is also the repository
of Best Practices and is used for replication of ideas / innovations
across business units.
Results achieved
The Packaging community
has been consistently delivering as per their charter. It successfully
initiated a number of cross business synergy projects and delivered
significant saving.
Getting it going
needed considerable attention to strengthening knowledge sharing
behavior through facilitation, training and leadership.
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What are
the barriers for implementing Knowledge Management?
Conceptual / mindset
related issues:
We need to create
a culture of sharing. Often knowledge is seen as power and in
a competitive environment there could be a tendency to hoard
knowledge. Key to success of KM is creation of knowledge sharing
culture and elimination of organizational and cultural barriers
for communication. We should move from " hoarding of knowledge
to gain power" to "sharing of knowledge to gain power."
Operational issues:
Time: The typical
executive is already hard pressed for time. He has no time for
an additional initiative, if it is seen as a diversion from focus
on immediate results. So, it is important to integrate KM into
existing business processes in the company and embed into workflow.
KM should not be seen as a separate initiative, but should be
integrated into current workflow as a more effective way to achieve
business results.
The experience of
exemplar practitioners of KM demonstrates that it succeeds only
when we are able to signal to employees, strong senior management
endorsement for KM. Like all organizational transformation processes,
KM needs to be led by senior management.
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The
role of HR in institutionalizing KM in an organization
As can be seen from
the above, knowledge management is essentially a people related
discipline, with focus on strengthening collaborative team effort
to leverage collective knowledge of the enterprise.
HR has a pivotal
role to play in the KM movement. Key HR processes -- Corporate
Education, Performance Management and nurturing (sharing, doing
and caring) culture, have a very significant role in the development
of the knowledge-based enterprise.
Talent management,
which is the domain of HR and knowledge management are closely
interrelated. While Talent Management focuses at individual level
-- recruitment, training, skill and competency development and
career planning of an individual, knowledge management focuses
on people at collective level, how to leverage the collective
knowledge of the enterprise, through Mentoring and knowledge
sharing and collaborative team working.
KM should be developed
into a key competency of the people.
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How then
do HR processes and practices
impact
the knowledge sharing in a firm?
Let us briefly examine
some of the HR processes and practices that should be aligned
to strengthen knowledge management.
At the stage of
induction of new executives into the organization, coaching and
mentoring systems are meant to transfer knowledge, exposure during
training to variety of functions, units and geographical locations
helps knowledge awareness / transfer.
Employees will benefit
from "Mentorship," not only during the initial months
but also for a long time after that. The role of the mentor in
the later period would be to challenge the executive to look
beyond the obvious, look for past learning and base decisions
on a more informed platform.
Job rotations: Well-planned job (role)
rotations across geographical locations and businesses in a firm
help not only people development, but also provide an important
vehicle for transfer of knowledge and best practices, even though
an organization cannot obviously depend on this as the main source
of knowledge transfer.
Networked organization: A networked organization
with people playing multiple roles, being part of multiple teams
-- a vertical team (Business / category) as well a horizontal
team (function / knowledge domain), is the way forward to effectively
"leverage collective knowledge" of an enterprise. HR
should play a key role in developing such a networked organization,
through sponsorship and or facilitation of knowledge communities
(teams), cutting across formal organizational silos.
Training: Learning and knowledge
are inter-linked. Knowledge strategies should encompass learning
initiatives and knowledge initiatives need to converge with training
initiatives. A Company's training program needs to focus on functional
and business specific skill development programs as well as competency
development focused programs.
Knowledge communities
(Teams), as the owners and users of the knowledge, should play
an active role in developing suitable course material for the
functional and business specific courses.
Knowledge management
cannot be practiced without a clear focus on "learning"
within the organization. An example of this is the "Bulab
learning center" in Buckman Laboratories, an oft-quoted
exemplar practitioner of KM. They set up this learning center
to provide employees greater access to training and education
and an ability to drive their own development. Rather than the
student going to a class, this learning center delivers the classroom
to the student -- anytime / anywhere in the world. Apart from
offering internal training courses, the learning center also
offers courses for credit from multiple Universities around the
world, for degree programs ranging to Ph.D. level. All the courses
offered are free to the student, if he completes it successfully.
E- Learning is
online learning. It is made available through company web
sites (Intranets), and even through CD-ROMs. It allows
the learner to enroll into courses or programs of their choice
and acquire knowledge at their own pace at the place of their
choice. Corporate online universities, exclusive learning space
to induct managers or develop future leaders, on going programs
for sales personnel and induction into new products and services
are some of the e-learning offerings, some of the companies are
making available to their employees to develop themselves. E-Learning
provides the benefit of convenience -- allows the learner to
do the learning at his or her pace, flexibility -- Learner does
not have to sacrifice a training program because of its clash
with customer or personal visit, and ease of learning. Experience
in US / Europe seems to confirm that e-learning also saves costs.
As of now Bandwidth might pose some constraints, but with fast
changing IT infrastructure, even in India, this could offer interesting
opportunities.
IBM has about 2500
on-line courses on offer to meet the different employee needs.
At Buckman Laboratories, all the employees are connected to their
Global IT network. They have therefore chosen to deliver the
classroom to their employees over the Intranet rather than require
them to travel to a classroom.
Even in cases where
the employees are called upon to participate in training in classrooms,
they have an interesting approach to distance learning. The introductory
material that would be normally presented at the plenary class
room sessions is provided through distance learning packages
via CD-ROM or Intranets. This ensures that every one can go through
it in his or her own speed. Physical classroom meetings are used
to really interact with each other, the teacher and the material.
By delivering the
class room to the student instead of sending the student to the
class room, Buckman could significantly reduce the training costs
per hour per employee, through savings in out of service cost,
travel cost, cost of classroom, housing cost while taking the
course and the cost of the professor or content. The Learning
Center is currently capable of handling a wide variety of the
courses -- internal training, courses for credit from some of
the universities.
The training and
skill profile of the employee is regularly updated, based on
the successful completion (examination) of the on-line courses.
We in HLL put a
lot of emphasis on continuous training (both internal in HLL,
at the Global Training Centers as well as external training)
to develop the capability of our employees and help them realize
their potential. Our company training programs --- like creative
workshops, team excellence workshops, process improvement workouts,
forums for best practice sharing and KM workshops strongly support
capability building in the areas of knowledge creation / capture
(Innovation) and knowledge sharing.
Many of our businesses
in Unilever have set up global learning centers (HPC Marketing
academy, the ice cream academy, world tea academy etc.) to develop
training programs tailored to the skill requirements of the respective
businesses. The mission of these academies is to help build within
Unilever superior business specific capabilities necessary to
deliver sustained competitive advantage and increased profitable
growth. Our global training center at Four Acres -- UK, has developed
Interactive Learning Programs in a few strategic priority areas.
Another very useful
role HR could play is to capture stories of successes and failures
in the company, archive them in the company-training center for
reference for future. This would not only support learning but
could prevent repeat of same mistakes.
Culture change:
Leveraging collective knowledge is possible only when people
value building on each other's ideas and sharing their insights.
Much of this shaped by the culture of the organization. In some
cultures, where knowledge is seen as power, knowledge sharing
may be seen to be in conflict with the individual's personal
interests (individual excellence / competitive advantage). Therefore,
institutionalization of Knowledge Management requires HR to focus
on managing the culture change / mindset of the people to strengthen
collaborative team working and knowledge sharing.
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How do we
create a knowledge sharing culture?
Realign incentive
and reward program:
"People do
not do what you tell them, but what you measure them for."
HR needs to institute a system of rewards and recognition, training
and performance development practices -- activities that reinforce
the discipline of sharing, documenting knowledge and reuse of
others' ideas with pride to achieve business goals.
People in business
most often behave in a way that increases their career opportunities,
or recognizes their achievement. Most organizations reward individual
effort or task achievement. They reward something done in a crisis,
but most incentive programs do not reward avoiding a crisis.
The best KM practitioners reward employees for learning, sharing
and collaborating.
Some of the steps
HR could implement are:
Institute Team awards
to recognize and reward excellent collaborative team effort,
which has strongly contributed to business results. Ensure high
visibility for teams which have excelled in knowledge capture
/ sharing to deliver business excellence. Many companies have
found such team awards very useful in building up the enthusiasm
and commitment to collaborative team working and knowledge sharing
in the initial years, even though after a while, they might have
discontinued these once they moved beyond the need for such awards,
once the knowledge sharing is embedded into the culture. I have
illustrated below a few examples.
- Xerox : By including
knowledge sharing as a dimension for its prestigious president's
award, leadership at Xerox has demonstrated those senior management
values and rewards knowledge-sharing behavior. Also, at Xerox,
the worldwide Customer Services organization created a "
Eureka Hall of Fame" for technicians who author solutions
that resolve the greatest number of problems. It also created
a " Validator's Hall of Fame" for the second level
engineers who test the solutions submitted by the technicians
for validity. Hall of Fame members receive cash awards and recognition.
- Hewlett Packard
Consulting: Senior management made explicit the desired behavior
of employees, in their "vision" statement: "Our
consultants feel and act as if they have the knowledge of the
entire organization at their fingertips when they consult with
customers. We will recognize those consultants that share and
those that leverage other's knowledge and experience as most
valuable members of the HP team."
Leadership commitment
is further evidenced by the Knowledge Masters Award, which
recognized excellence in knowledge creation and use. This prestigious
award recognized employees whose knowledge mastery best exemplified
the culture of balancing innovation with reuse; and contributed
to significant and measurable business impact. The nominations
for these awards were accompanied by written stories of why the
individuals were being nominated. The stories not only reflected
the growing understanding for the concepts and application of
knowledge management but also provided stories that demonstrated
the business value of knowledge sharing.
- Unilever's Path
to Growth awards recognize outstanding achievements in meeting
the Company's strategic goals. There are three award categories,
embracing broader employee and business achievements. The three
categories recognize:
- Measurable significant
growth in either revenue or margin
- Big ideas with
demonstrable potential for future growth in either revenue or
margin, and
- "Enterprise
culture in action" - single-minded passion for winning,
liberating rigor and connected creativity.
This award is for
collaborative team effort to create and share knowledge to innovate
and win! The "enterprise culture in action" award could
be entered by every one from employees in HR or Research
to those in manufacturing, distribution or in the Corporate Center.
The winner of this award could be anywhere in the business. As
long as their behavior or venture could be applied in other parts
of the business with significant benefit, it need not be a large-scale
initiative. It could, for example, be a new way of approaching
a process or system that has been in place for a number of years.
All entries for
the award must align with one of the strategic thrusts that make
up Unilever's Path to Growth.
Make sure that at
least one of the MBOs is a team MBO focused on tangible results
through capture / sharing of knowledge.
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HR should
be the catalyst for culture change
Buckman Laboratories
is an example which best illustrates this. Bob Buckman, former
CEO of Buckman who led the culture change initiatives in the
company emphasizes " our Code of Ethics is the glue
that holds the company together and provides the basis for respect
and trust that are necessary in a knowledge sharing environment.
These fundamental beliefs are essential to being able to communicate
across the many barriers to communication that exist in our company.
A common set of shared values is critical to guide the relationship
with in an organization that wants proactive knowledge sharing.
Ours is embedded in our Code of Ethics." This Code of Ethics
was developed by the organization through debate and discussions
in which a wide cross-section of employees in the company participated.
"This Code of Ethics are an integral part of the effort
to achieve and maintain knowledge sharing in our company."
In our own company,
we are in the process of launching few key initiatives for culture
change, to firmly establish the "the enterprise culture,"
on the bedrock of our "values" -- Truth, Courage, Action
and Caring. HR has been a key enabler in the process so far in
helping articulate the behaviors and big-ticket action plans.
HR will also be
a key facilitator in implementing a company wide communication
of value behaviors. Team excellence workshops and process improvement
(speed, simplicity and excellence) workouts are among the key
initiatives that will soon be launched by HR to support the culture
change. These culture change initiatives will strongly support
our efforts to become a stronger knowledge driven company, committed
to business excellence.
Develop "Knowledge
Pull" -- a grassroots desire among employees to tap into
their company's intellectual resources. HR can impact this through
-- training and practices that reinforce this desire.
Some of the steps
that HR could take to this end are:
- Performance Development
Planning (PDP). In HLL, our PDP incorporates "knowledge
- Development & Sharing " as one of the key competencies
to be monitored and developed. Some of the key competencies linked
to knowledge development and sharing are
1. Learning from
experience (actively searching for others ideas, willingness
to discuss failures and openness to feedback)
2. Developing others (commitment to share insights, help others
shine, focus on future)
3. Team commitment (promoting cooperation and trust, open and
active participation in team projects, task forces, communities
of practice / Networks, upholding team's ideas and proposals).
- Develop a mechanism
to communicate effectively what knowledge-related behavior is
expected from the employees. Identify knowledge as a key competence
and recognize and rewards those who develop and excel in this
competence. For example, this could be one of the key competencies
for identifying managers of high potential. There are examples
of companies who included sharing of as a criterion to get the
highest rating in performance evaluation. There are other examples
- where people who do not share are ignored or fail to be promoted
or are "siloed."
- Share with all
employees, success stories of collaborative effort and knowledge
sharing, through House Magazine, workshops etc.
- Make KM part of
the Company training modules.
- Hold visible knowledge
sharing events like " Knowledge Fairs." Such events
will energize the whole organization -- where high visibility
is provided for excellent contributions to knowledge capture
creation and sharing.
Transformation into
knowledge driven organization is essentially a people related
issue. HR has a key role to play in nurturing and strengthening
knowledge management through "learning initiatives"
and "culture change initiatives." HR is best placed
to play the role of an effective facilitator, and give positive
reinforcements for Knowledge Management through organizing visible
knowledge sharing events and strengthening skill and competency
development of employees. HR should put in place specific processes
and structures for KM and the necessary monitoring systems.
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