Reflective Learning - Knowledge Management - Term Paper Example

Reflection: Knowledge Management Introduction The of knowledge management now generates interest in many people. It is not surprising because in our contemporary changing world knowledge management represents an innovation thus I consider this course to be very valuable and want to write about the knowledge I receive during this course. Adaptation of new knowledge management solutions is a very good opportunity for many organizations. I must say that “Knowledge Management” is a very interesting and useful course. The process of learning was encouraging from the very beginning. Some information was easy to understand and other caused problems and required more efforts. Our instructor explained the material and helped overcome the difficulties. It was also interesting to learn the ideas of famous scientists. According toAndrew Carnegie, “the only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it” (“Why Knowledge Management?”). Peter Drucker stated: “The basic economic resource—the means of production—is no longer capital, nor natural resources, nor labor. It is and will be knowledge” (“Why Knowledge Management?”). Charles Darwin also provided some comments that I consider to be connected to knowledge management: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” (“Why Knowledge Management?”). During the course it was easy to reveal my strength and weaknesses and eliminate difficulties. The major difficulty consisted in doing the research to reveal the necessary information, but I successfully overcame it and now I would like to share my knowledge. I want to share not only theoretical part, I am sure that theory does not mean much if not supported by practice. I want to demonstrate how I see the knowledge I got improving the activity of a company. Knowledge management is proved to be helpful in improving the activity of any modern organization and I am going to describe the way of such improvement and provide an example. Knowledge management and human resource management During the course it became clear that in the contemporary business world knowledge management represents a strategy able to improve the structure of any organization. It can implement data supervision, transfer information among employees and clients improving the communication process that is essential for any business. During the course I learned from the provided examples that those organizations, which implement Knowledge Management System, have significantly improved their showings, because the new system reduced their expenses providing new opportunities to make their work easier and pleasant (Choi, 2009). Knowledge management is very important first of all for human resource management of the organization as it offers self-service. An employee receives an access to his personal data, to his personal plans and itinerary and human resource managers have more time to plan training schedule and implement other more important tasks instead of looking for the material to answer the questions employees have every day (Choi, 2009). During the course we investigated the most important problems organizations meet in the contemporary business world. These problems were revealed during the special research in several companies. Some people consider research to be an easy process, however it appeared to be difficult for me to reveal the necessary information. The textbooks and lectures helped me understand how to reveal important information in the research process. The main problems modern organizations face Finally, three main problems were revealed: strict time deadlines, clients’ dissatisfaction and employee turnover. Well-structured working process and well-established communication process can help solve these common but difficult problems. However, recent research showed that some companies already have social management system, which did not prove to be helpful for the reason of absence of proper knowledge systems. The lack of appropriate knowledge systems resulted in high employee turnover that affect organization’s showings negatively. As a result of employee turnover organizations lose perspective workers and hire wrong people. The employee training is not held on time that results in losses of valuable clients. The description of knowledge management that we studied and the discussed benefits of this system for decreasing the employee turnover rate make it clear that knowledge management can help by providing accurate and timely information. Knowledge Management can transform your organization to new levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and scope of operation. Through advancements in technology, data and information are readily available. The modern business manager is able to discover and learn new measures, new technologies, and new opportunities, but this requires the ability to gather information in usable formats and disseminate knowledge to achieve the organization’s objectives (“Why Knowledge Management?”). For a great number of organizations employee turnover causes serious expenses. I studied a lot about employee turnover to find out more about this phenomenon in order to find the solution. At the lecture I found out that there is a great number of factors, which in their turn may arise both from employees and their bosses. Compensations, organization’s success and performance are crucial determinants of employee turnover rate. A lot of companies have working Call Centers and Live Chats. Such structures were established to provide clients with proper assistance solving the problems they may have with the products or services. However, the investigations showed that companies’ workers still trust the old methods more than new technologies. That is why the established structure can’t work properly. A great number of unanswered calls and slow data turnover generate client’s dissatisfaction and worker’s ‘frustration. This results in lose of good clients and employees and influence companies’ showing negatively. The solution During the course I understood that it is important not only to establish Knowledge Management Solutions but to teach employees how to use the new system. Without proper knowledge they would not be able to use the system quickly and will become confused, so the system will appear to be useless lower (Downing, 2004). Special training should be held to explain workers that Knowledge Management Solutions exist to help gather necessary data, answer questions with the help of information from interactive catalogs (see Figure 1). These bases can systematize the activity of any organization. I defined several opportunities: The system provides the opportunity to collect experience; the information can be found in catalogues, so there is no necessity in mails and calls; Self-assistance becomes possible; Information transfer becomes an easy process; Customers can receive the description of any product fast and without contacting the employee. Consequently, better effectiveness is achieved due to fast access to essential information. This can save much time as workers do not need to ask other employees for information they do not have and list papers looking for the answer, while the client is on the line. Workers are pleased with their jobs and their bosses are pleased with the company’s showings, so employee turnover rate is lower (Downing, 2004). The knowledge management system can also generate reports, which show the effectiveness. Companies can easily check what problems they have already solved and what issues are paid less attention. This help meet customer’s needs, implement workers’ training, create bases with necessary information. I liked the idea of Mike Gotta in his work “11 Deadly KM Sins Revisited”: 100% on, knowledge management is about creating shared context so that information can flow. Without shared context there is no information, its all noise. This one deserved a lot more attention than it got (Gotta, 2007) Conclusion The course of knowledge management now generates interest in me and appeared to be very helpful. It is not surprising because in our contemporary changing world knowledge management represents an innovation thus I consider this course to be very valuable and want to write about the knowledge I receive during this course. Adaptation of new knowledge management solutions is a very good opportunity for many organizations. I must say that “Knowledge Management” is a very interesting and useful course. The process of learning was encouraging from the very beginning. Some information was easy to understand and other caused problems and required more efforts. Our instructor explained the material and helped overcome the difficulties. For a great number of organizations employee turnover causes serious expenses. I studied a lot about employee turnover to find out more about this phenomenon in order to find the solution. At the lecture I found out that there is a great number of factors, which in their turn may arise both from employees and their bosses. Compensations, organization’s success and performance are crucial determinants of employee turnover rate. Knowledge management is very important first of all for human resource management of the organization as it offers self-service. An employee receives an access to his personal data, to his personal plans and itinerary and human resource managers have more time to plan training schedule and implement other more important tasks instead of looking for the material to answer the questions employees have to them every day. I understood that those companies who use Knowledge Management System have a chance to improve their showings. Special interactive catalogues provide the companies with a lot of new opportunities and make the working process easier and more pleasant. I think that every organization should establish such system to improve its activity. Figure 1. Knowledge Management Data Model Source: http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/knowledge_management/index.htm. Works Cited Downing, J. R. 2004. "Its Easier to Ask Someone I Know": Call Center Technicians Adoption of Knowledge Management Tools. The Journal of Business Communication, 41(2), 166+. Choi, S. 2009. Diversity in the US Federal Government: Diversity Management and Employee Turnover in Federal Agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19(3), 603+. “Why Knowledge Management?” (August 3rd 2007) available at http://www.knowledgemanagementgateway.com/ Gotta, Mike. 2007. “11 Deadly KM Sins Revisited” available at http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515a5969e200e00990c4fc8833 Read More