Understanding Knowledge Transfer: Types, Strategies, and Importance

Incorporating Knowledge Transfer strategies into your Knowledge Management System can prevent the loss of valuable company knowledge when employees leave. Knowledge transfer occurs when experienced employees pass on their ideas, knowledge, information, and experience to their replacements within an organization.

Organizing, creating, capturing, and distributing knowledge in an organization is crucial for ensuring that future users can easily access and effectively utilize it. If you're looking to implement knowledge transfer in your organization and empower new employees, then this post is tailored to your needs.

What is Knowledge Transfer?

Knowledge transfer is the word that holds the key to solving the problem of loss of knowledge and best practices a company faces, with the exit of an employee.

Capturing knowledge acquired on the job, solutions to past problems, and other relevant information is the main objective of knowledge transfer. Its purpose is to facilitate the use of this knowledge by future employees, enabling them to work more efficiently. As a means of passing information from one area of a business to another, knowledge transfer plays a crucial role in promoting innovation, enhancing collaboration among team members, and fostering a shared understanding within the organization.

It involves the efficient transfer of individuals' knowledge into a system for future use. This ensures the timely delivery of accurate information to the appropriate individuals.

Why is Knowledge Transfer Important?

As the pandemic continues to create economic challenges for companies, knowledge management has become a crucial factor for success. When employees depart from an organization, they take with them their valuable expertise and insights, underlining the importance of preserving institutional knowledge.

The knowledge possessed by certain employees could prove to be crucial for the company, and their departure could leave a gap in understanding for others. They bring with them years of experience, expertise, and on-the-job learning. It may take a newcomer some time to fully grasp the intricacies of the role. This is where the significance of knowledge transfer and implementing an efficient system for collecting, organizing, and storing data comes into play. Training a replacement can be a costly and time-consuming process, and having a system in place can help avoid these expenses.

A well-designed knowledge management system simplifies the process of capturing, storing, retrieving, and sharing data, a desirable feature for any company. By avoiding the repetition of issues faced by past employees, new hires can quickly become productive and contribute to the organization's success.

Facilitating knowledge transfer generates a team-learning culture that promotes ongoing improvements within the organization. Employees are spared the need to reinvent the wheel, saving them time and enabling them to become more skilled in their roles.

Now, as we hope you would have understood what knowledge transfer is and why it is essential for contemporary business models, let us delve into its different types-

Types of Knowledge Transfer

Organizations utilize knowledge transfer as a means to enhance employee flexibility and expertise in adapting to job roles that demand diverse skill sets. This process involves accessing available information and applying it to the job at hand. To ensure that employees have access to this information, organizations have implemented systems for capturing, aggregating, organizing, and storing it for future use. Despite involving the transfer of knowledge, information, and ideas, knowledge transfer differs significantly from training.

There are two types of knowledge transfer.

1. Explicit Knowledge Transfer

This type of knowledge can be documented, shared, and comprehended through manuals and databases. It can also be acquired through reading books or by consulting with an individual who possesses expertise on the subject matter. This explicit form of knowledge transfer is based on factual information that can be easily communicated and understood.

2. Tacit Knowledge Transfer

This type of knowledge is often referred to as "tacit knowledge," and it is not easily taught through traditional means. It is the knowledge that a person gains through hands-on experience, keen observation, and finding creative solutions to unique problems through trial and error, as well as through research. This knowledge is valuable because it is deeply ingrained in an individual's understanding of a particular subject or situation, making it difficult for others to replicate or replace.

Tacit knowledge, which is difficult to articulate, holds a significant role in knowledge transfer. While explicit knowledge is easily shared, tacit knowledge requires more effort and interaction to effectively communicate. This type of knowledge is gained through personal experience on the job, and is highly sought after by organizations looking to share it with others facing similar challenges.

Knowledge Transfer Strategies

The process of transferring knowledge is far from straightforward. In order to effectively capture critical information, a company must first determine what knowledge is most important to record and then determine the most effective way to do so. This is complicated by the fact that employees have varying approaches to learning, and different groups within the company may have varying levels of understanding of certain concepts.

The diverse workforce in terms of age means varying levels of tech-savviness among employees, making it important to carefully consider how to effectively impart knowledge to those who need it in the company.

A few of the knowledge transfer strategies would be:

Using podcasts and webinars

Making instructional Videos

Using simulations

Incorporating community of practice

Offering on the Job Training

Blogging by Experts

FAQ’s on Company Intranet Sites

Mentoring and Coaching

Work shadowing and paired work

Story Telling and documentation

Executing a Knowledge Transfer Plan for an Organization

Every organization must have a knowledge transfer plan ready to facilitate the percolation of knowledge among all the employees.

The transfer of knowledge within an organization not only makes it readily available but also easily accessible to all employees. Its ultimate goal is to create a more knowledgeable, collaborative, and harmonious workforce. Developing a knowledge transfer plan requires careful consideration and planning.

A few things that should find a place in a good knowledge transfer plan are:

1. Identifying and Deciding the Knowledge that Needs to be Gathered

Identifying the vital information that requires retention and the individuals possessing it is the first step of a knowledge transfer strategy. The following guidelines may facilitate the process of determining what to collect and from whom. These answers will set the foundation for the knowledge transfer plan.

Identify the go-to persons

Identify things that only these persons know

Can another employee handle the job if the said employee is unavailable?

How is the team dependant on them?

What are the tasks that only they can handle?

2. Obtaining the Necessary Knowledge

Organize the information you obtain from the identified sources by categorizing it into the following sections.

Who are you collecting the knowledge from?

The individual and their criticality perform the critical task.

Do other people know how to perform the said task?

How does the ignorance of the knowledge or technology impact the business?

Resources needed to share the information.

3. Sharing the Knowledge Transfer Plan

The crucial aspect of this step is ensuring that the right individuals receive the collected information promptly, and in a format that is suitable for their use. With the aid of modern technology, there are now numerous ways to disseminate information efficiently and effectively.

Other ways are not entirely technology-dependent, which can also be effectively used to inform people. Below are a few ways that have been identified for this purpose.

Mentorship

Podcasts

Webcasts

Simulations

On the Job Training

Paired Work

Work Shadowing

Blogs

Videos

E-Learning

Instructor-Led Learning

4. Evaluating the Knowledge Transfer Plan

It is crucial for any company to regularly assess the effectiveness of their adopted processes, once they are implemented and operational. This evaluation helps in identifying any potential problems and making necessary improvements to enhance the overall efficiency of the system.

Assessing whether you have accomplished your original objective is equally important for the knowledge transfer strategy. Consider revisiting this goal to identify any areas where adjustments may be needed.

This will also help build on the experience to make the process more robust and effective in due course.

5. Using the Strategy and Technical Know-how for Ongoing Efforts

As your small business continues to gather more information, it's important to recognize that knowledge is constantly evolving. This means that the transfer of knowledge should be an ongoing process and your plan should be flexible enough to adapt to any new developments.

Having an eye on the future while building the process will always come in handy.

The onus is also on the company to encourage employees to use the knowledge transfer plan to its full potential.

Benefits of Knowledge Transfer

1.Prevents Knowledge Loss

The knowledge that your old employees gained while working in the organization will be shared with new employees, and hence there will be no knowledge loss.

This central source of information ensures that all employees have access to the same knowledge and can easily retrieve it when needed, promoting consistency and accuracy in decision-making and problem-solving.

By implementing a knowledge transfer strategy, organizations can streamline the process of finding and utilizing necessary information, ultimately minimizing the time and effort employees spend searching for it.

By implementing solutions to past issues, employees can focus on their current tasks and responsibilities, leading to an increase in overall productivity for both the individual and the organization as a whole.

5. Improves Adaptability and Agility

By having access to the critical knowledge associated with an organization, the workforce will always have more adaptability and agility.

By implementing knowledge transfer strategies, organizations can significantly cut down on their training expenses for new hires. Furthermore, this approach helps to overcome the obstacles of distance and time in communication.

Finally, knowledge transfer is effective in encouraging employees to experience the importance of knowledge sharing.

Final Thoughts!

Having a system for transferring knowledge is essential in today's constantly evolving job market. With employees frequently seeking new opportunities and changing jobs, it's crucial for companies to be able to replace critical staff members with minimal difficulty. Additionally, having easily accessible information benefits both the company and employees, saving valuable time, energy, and resources.

Having a knowledge transfer plan can greatly benefit a company by allowing new employees to quickly adapt to the job requirements and have a resource to refer to in case of any uncertainties. Additionally, it promotes cross-departmental collaboration and understanding of various processes within the company.

How important do you consider knowledge transfer in an organization?