UC Resellers as Talent Management Consultants?

It's not as far-fetched as you may think.

I have pointed out in past articles that there is a need to put the "V" back in VAR. The value of any technology is what it does, not what it is. UC by itself is not a solution. In the recent IBM white paper entitled The Business of Social Business, the authors do a nice job of describing three strategic opportunities presented by the application of unified communications technologies. These areas are:

• Create valued customer experiences
  
  
• Drive workforce productivity and effectiveness
  
  
• Accelerate innovation

I am going to discuss one of these areas, workforce productivity, and dive deeper into an example of how UC technologies drive real strategic value. My example will be knowledge management - specifically knowledge capture. My hope is that resellers and vendors can use this approach as a way to broaden client relationships beyond IT into, in this case, HR. If you are looking for some validity to this approach just look at IBM's purchase of Kenexa.

Advanced unified communications and collaboration technologies have penetrated the workplace yet enterprise knowledge transfer systems remain static. As the "Boomers" retire and leave the organization, so goes a great deal of valuable knowledge that will have to be relearned. What was once a competitive edge is now lost. But the proliferation of powerful mobile devices, cloud-based apps, and employee familiarity with collaborative tools (UC technologies) has established the foundation for an effective knowledge management system.

It is predicted that 19 percent of the workforce holding executive, administrative, and managerial positions in the United States will retire in the next five years. Compounding the problem, the economic downturn, increased job mobility, and layoffs have pushed annual turnover rates to over 30 percent in many industries. The next generation will have fewer workers and therefore a tighter job market. This makes the knowledge capture issue critical.

"KM should be one of the key pillars underpinning a human capital strategy for the organization. As with anything else, some organizations are leaders and some are laggards. Those who recognize the importance of KM to the organization's overarching vision, mission, and strategy should hopefully be in the winning side of the equation in the years ahead." [Dalkir]

Daniel Bobrow and Jack Whalen of Xerox's PARC pioneering project, called Eureka, uncovered the relationships between the technical information and the social context. The project started in the 1980s and concluded in 2000. It serves as an interesting chronology of how the evolution of technology facilitated the acquisition and sharing of information. Back in the 1980s there was no Internet or social media. The closest thing to a unified network was BBS services accessed via dial-up modem. Data was distributed via floppy diskette and run on laptop computers, which were scarce at that time. Technicians relied on handwritten notes carried with them on service calls or radio calls to friends or experts to solve difficult problems. Documentation was in the form of printed manuals. Nevertheless, technicians used these written notes and shared them in informal meetings at the end of the day back at the office. This sharing process, or collaboration, was ingrained in the organization, and the goal of Eureka was to help facilitate it and make it scalable.

Early on, the lack of a network was a major obstacle. Today, the cloud eliminates that problem. Eureka started out as a rules-based expert system and ended up as a collaborative network of experts. This lesson can be applied in any organization. In a medical device manufacturer, for example, field technicians work closely with doctors who are using the latest products in the operating rooms all over the world. The existing network of mobile devices (BYOD) can be used to collect information as it happens (even video) and make it available to anyone in the community. Bobrow and Whalen would be jealous of our technology.

Salvatore Pariese, Rob Cross, and Thomas Davenport [2006] address the "knowledge-loss crisis" in terms of both the knowledge that leaves with departing employees and their relationships inside and outside the organization. Their definition of knowledge loss is when employees leave with both what they know and who they know.

The nature of the relationship risk can be defined by performing an Organizational Network Analysis (ONA). According to their study, employees fall into three categories: central connectors, brokers, and peripheral players. Each of these ONA types carries unique organizational risks when they leave. The central connectors are the most influential and important because of their organizational "deep smarts." Their importance to the organization cannot be overstated.

Central connectors are the "go to people" in times of crisis. They tend to be open, supportive, and willing to share their knowledge. This is why it is critical for the organization to leverage their naturally collaborative behaviors. One technique is to have central connectors lead communities of practice around their areas of expertise. Social Business says this is where we can use social tools and media to involve the central connectors in new employee onboarding and mentoring programs.

Another technique for capturing field knowledge is the use of extensive interviewing with story telling. At World Bank, this technique was used to build a knowledge base of video and audio tapes of selected individuals involved in challenging projects. These media resources are posted on the company website and pushed to targeted distribution lists. By "chunking down" and tagging the content it becomes searchable for a broader audience and can serve many different purposes.

All of the above examples of knowledge management and knowledge capture were facilitated by collaboration and social media technologies.

According to the IBM study, top-line growth for businesses using social business can improve between 3 and 11 percent. This was backed up by a similar McKinsey study that estimated 2 to 12 percent productivity improvement using these approaches. While the bulk of the growth over the next two years in the use of social business will come in marketing, customer service, and sales, workforce productivity and innovation will be affected as well. Specifically in the area of knowledge management, social business will drive engagement with individuals and groups, build communities, and foster collaboration. Fifty-seven percent of the companies surveyed are using social business to enable more effective internal collaboration. That number will grow to 78 percent within the next two years.

I hope this example of the role of knowledge management in enterprises spurs additional thoughts on how UC technologies can accelerate your client's growth and success - and helps you sell more solutions.

Sources

Dalkir, Kimiz. 2011. Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice, 2^nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN-10: 0262015080, ISBN-13: 978-0262015080

Cortada, James W., Lesser, Eric, and Korsten, Peter F. 2012. The Business of Social Business: What works and how it's done, IBM Institute for Business Value, IBM Global Business Services

Bobrow, Daniel G. and Whalen, Jack. 2002. Community knowledge sharing in practice: The Eureka story. Reflections, 4(2), 47-59.

Parise, Salvatore, Cross, Rob and Davenport, Thomas H. 2006. Strategies for preventing a knowledge-loss crisis. MIT Sloan Management Review, 47 (4), 31-38.

Casher, Amy and Lesser, Eric. 2003. Gray matter matters: Preserving critical knowledge in the 21st century. IBM Business Consulting Services.