Most organizations in the past managed and preserved the knowledge they had built up very carelessly. They paid woefully little attention to it, resulting in accumulated knowledge often being lost when an employee retired or changed jobs. Yet, the importance of possessing high-quality knowledge has increased exponentially since industrialization, and this knowledge is primarily built in the minds of employees. One would expect a modern organization to maximize its efforts to retain knowledge and do everything to ensure the knowledge within the organization is fully utilized.
The preservation and sharing of knowledge have become even more critical due to the widespread adoption of hybrid working. If we want to perform complex tasks, innovate, and co-create, the collaboration within a team must be optimal and of high quality. The strength of collaboration lies in combining the knowledge present in the team, leading to new insights and the added value of creative teamwork. However, working remotely makes it much harder to share information smoothly. We have all experienced this by now. While handling daily tasks from the home office is generally not a problem, we have noticed that information exchange through online contacts often lacks depth. We follow an agenda but rarely delve deeply into topics. Additionally, there is an issue with the frequency of knowledge exchange. The most interesting contacts often occur during informal and accidental exchanges of information, highlighting the power and importance of the office coffee machine. This aspect largely disappears when working online. We meet our colleagues much less spontaneously, leaving no time or opportunity for spontaneous “chats,” reducing the quality of our information exchange. Recent scientific research has also confirmed the noticeable loss of depth and frequency in information exchange.
As many organizations today face a significant outflow of experienced and specialized employees, risking the loss of crucial knowledge, knowledge management is being taken increasingly seriously—a positive evolution. Organizations are increasingly hiring knowledge managers tasked with coordinating and organizing the collection, preservation, structuring, and sharing of knowledge.
However, we must consider two types of knowledge. Explicit knowledge is accessible to others in principle. It is knowledge that can be documented within the organization in documents, reports, wikis on servers, etc. This process has become largely manageable thanks to digitization. The risk of losing digital knowledge is limited if we set up a robust structure and system for its retrieval. We can easily provide the right tools, train employees, and make agreements. Implicit knowledge, however, is a much bigger problem. This knowledge is hidden in employees’ minds, making it very challenging to describe or explain. Polanyi (1966) stated that we “know more than we can tell.” Implicit knowledge also contributes to actions, making it essential. It is often undocumented and built over years of experience.
While knowledge management was often approached from the ICT perspective in the past due to its clear link with information technology, we have seen a shift toward human resources in recent years. This is logical since knowledge is still (for now) produced by people, and it is HR’s core task to support the productivity of people in the organization. This shift beautifully illustrates how the “people aspect” is becoming increasingly important in our companies. In addition to promoting well-being, selecting and attracting talent, supporting leadership, and providing a healthy and challenging work environment, knowledge retention is now also part of the HR team’s responsibilities. Introducing a system for managing knowledge significantly impacts the development of employees’ technical competencies. HR must ensure that the organization becomes a “learning organization,” which is particularly challenging with the rise of hybrid working.
There is an important link between hybrid working and knowledge sharing in the organization. Hybrid working consists of four key components that must be balanced, with knowledge sharing being the first. The second component is time- and location-independent working. As mentioned earlier, extensive remote work can negatively impact knowledge sharing in the organization. Therefore, within hybrid working, we must make clear agreements to guarantee the presence of teams together on the work floor. A third key component is leadership, which in hybrid working focuses on achieving results and building trust. Leaders are tasked with supporting and coaching teams, actively promoting knowledge sharing, and monitoring the processes around knowledge sharing and retention. The fourth component is the dynamic work environment, which should primarily trigger and support implicit knowledge sharing.
Why do we still come to a physical office today? It makes little sense to ask employees to travel to a central workplace in the heart of a major city if they can perfectly perform these activities from home or an alternative work environment (third place working).
If we want to offer a central workplace as an organization, it will primarily aim to support collaboration and knowledge exchange in the future. The modern workplace becomes a hub where team members meet, hold meetings, brainstorm, catch up, drink coffee, eat, and even relax. We do everything to create a landing spot that optimally supports the physical meetings of our virtual teams and can serve as a signal to potential employees.
The emphasis must be on flexibility, self-development, and freedom of choice. We break free from the traditional pattern of formal meetings and offer a work environment that encourages and facilitates the exchange of ideas and spontaneous encounters.
Today, working independently of the fixed workplace has become a reality. The office as the sole and central place we must go to access the corporate network is a thing of the past. Workplace measurements show that the average occupancy in our office environments is around 35%. This is relatively low but perfectly explainable. People work more part-time, often have meetings, and systematically work from home. In the modern work environment, we must primarily focus on (digital) tools that promote remote collaboration. Tools that support access to data, notes, and documentation and ensure that users can decide where and how they want to work. Tools that enable informal contact and real-time idea exchange.
In daily practice, we see many organizations seeking to differentiate themselves through specific strategies: branding, competency management, sales strategy, R&D, etc. Despite ambitious objectives, their work environments are often similar and uninspiring across sectors. Too few organizations effectively use their work environment as the strategic vector it could be: an environment that supports the pursuit of a new organizational culture, attracts young applicants, is sustainable, and promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing.
