Linking Knowledge Management and Employee Engagement · Linking Knowledge Management and Employee Engagement Will They Tell You What They Know? 2017 Mid-Atlantic Lean Conference Dr

Linking Knowledge Management and

Employee Engagement

Will They Tell You What They Know?

2017 Mid-Atlantic Lean Conference

Dr. Robert Downing

Date: 11/14/17

Newport News Shipbuilding

• Sole Supplier of U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers

• One of Two Builders Constructing Virginia Class Nuclear Submarines

• Exclusive Provider of Refueling Services for Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carriers

• Largest Non-Governmental Provider of Fleet Maintenance Services to the Navy

• Largest Industrial Employer in Virginia – More Than 23,000 Employees

• Home of the Western Hemisphere’s Largest Dry Dock and Crane

Newport News ShipbuildingA Subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries

Quotes from Survey Participants

I usually only share info when asked.

I don't offer and do not press if the suggestion is not well

received.

Basically, I will share and ask for advice from anyone… I

wouldn't share/ask for information from people who are

extremely high up in management or people who are

arrogant.

If you think you can just flip a switch and I’m going to

give you my best ideas – that’s never going to happen.

3

Types of Knowledge

Is inside of peoples’ heads or in the “Brains of Employees”. It

has not been captured, so it has not been formalized or

organized. The knowledge can not be easily accessed by

other employees.

Knowledge that has been articulated, captured, or codified

(Nichols, 2000) – “Written down”.

4

Tacit Knowledge :

Explicit knowledge:

Problem:

Losing Tacit Knowledge at a Faster Rate

Potential exists for significant knowledge loss.

Large portion of workforce moving to retirement years

Employees retire before their knowledge can be captured

What are you experiencing?

6

1.2%

6.7%

18.8%

23.3%

28.1%

18.3%

3.7%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

16-19 20-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

Manufacturing WorkforceAge as a percentage of Total US manufacturing workforce - 2012

Median Age = 44.7

Fear of Losing Your Knowledge

• Exercise

– Interview each other to determine knowledge at risk in

your organization. Think about age demographics (how

many and when they might leave), complexity of the

knowledge:

• 5 minutes

• 15 minutes to report-out

– Goal: To capture the unique/perishable knowledge

9

Increased Retirement –

Continuing Knowledge Loss

10

Increased Retirements

(and other attrition)

Smaller Pool of Qualified

Applicants

The Sources and Transfer of Knowledge

Where is knowledge when you need it?From an organization that spent 5 years to capture their tacit Knowledge

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

7%

16%

13%

13%

51%

Paper Documents

Electronic

Documents

Electronic Mail

Files

Electronic

Knowledge Bases

Brains of

Employees

At most companies, 80 - 90% of the corporate knowledge is in peoples’ heads

11

Problem with Sharing Knowledge

Slightly over 10% of the “knowledge transfer events” involved hiding knowledge.

Connelly, Zweig, Webster & Trougakos (2012).

From a Gallup Perspective – “Disengaged Employees”

Are you concerned with “Employee Engagement”?

12

Common Management Assumption

A common management assumption is that employees freely and openly will share their knowledge. This assumption seems to be based on the attitude that the company owns the knowledge that resides within the employees’ heads

Jarvenpaa & Staples (2001).

However, almost no objective evidence exists tosupport that this is how employees feel about sharing ortransferring their tacit knowledge.

13

What does this impact Process Improvement?

14

• Capture participants’ ideas

• Discuss implications

Purpose of the Tacit KM Study

Research Background:

Developing predictors of general knowledge transfer –

not just opinion.

The purpose of this study was to develop predictors or indicators of tacit-knowledge transfer.

30 questions / 5 categories•Perceived management commitment•Social interaction•Trust •Rewards•Status

Scoring was based on a seven point Likeret Scale

*Administered to employees from DOE labs (Navy Nuclear)

15

Results of Simple Linear Regression

Variable composite B SE B β t p

Trust 0.50 0.14 .43 3.51 .001**

Perceived management

commitment 0.41 0.13 .40 3.26 .002**

Social-interaction climate 0.32 0.12 .36 2.82 .007**

Reward 0.40 0.16 .32 2.49 .020*

Status 0.29 0.17 .22 1.67 .100

Table 6Simple Linear Regression With Each Variable Predicting Knowledge Sharing (p value = below .05 is significant)*p < .05. **p < .01.

Trust is the #1 predictor of knowledge sharing16

Link to Gallup (Best Friend at Work)

Tacit KM Survey Questions and ScoresQuestion Score

26 You and Pat both work at your

company. Both of you started work

at the same time and have been

friends ever since. Would you

share with Pat?

“Friend”

Mean Score 6.7 (out of 7) on KM

Sharing Survey

Note: This is the highest mean

score of all the survey questions.

95.7% will share


company in completely different

divisions and have never met each

other. Would you share with Pat?

“Don’t Know Them”

Mean Score 5.0 on KM Sharing

Survey 71.4% will share


company. Pat has a reputation for

never helping anyone. Would you

share with Pat?

“Perhaps, Don’t Like Them”

Lowest Mean Score 4.5 on KM

Sharing Survey 64.3% will share

Based on seven point Likert Scale: Seven is likely to share, one is not likely 17

Link to Gallup (Best Friend at Work)

Tacit KM Survey Questions and ScoresQuestion Score

New You and Pat both work at your

company in completely different

divisions. The two division have

been fighting over turf and

responsibilities for some time.

Would you share with Pat?

“Fighting over Turf”

6.4% will share

New You and Pat both work at your

company. Pat stabbed you in the

back two weeks ago. Would you

share with Pat?

“Stabbed you in the Back”

2.1% will share

Based on seven point Likert Scale: Seven is likely to share, one is not likely 18

Significance

• Knowledge sharing is “Situational” – it depends on the

Situation and how the employees feels about sharing.

– Note: This is not just “bad employees” not sharing.

This is “good employees not sharing” – depending on

the situation.

• Question: Does this apply to all discretionary effort from

employees? Gallup says “Yes”

19

Employee Engagement, the Missing Link

Employee

Engagement

Productivity &

Profitability

Black Box “Magic Occurs”

Knowledge Sharing

Culture Impacts Productivity20

21

Finding the Right Questions

• 1,000s of different questions

• More than 1 million employees

• Identify the factors common to productive workplaces

• Identify the best questions to measure these factors -

questions where the best said Yes and the rest said No

In 1994, Gallup Changed The Model

Copyright © 2009 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Science of the Sorting Effect

Higher performing units

Lower performing units

“I receive recognition.”

High ratingLow rating

Poor Item

“In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.”

High ratingLow rating

Great Item

23

Q12® Employee Engagement

▪ I know what is expected of me at work.

▪ I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.

At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

There is someone at work who encourages my development.

At work, my opinions seem to count.

The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

My associates (fellow employees) are committed to doing quality work.

I have a best friend at work.

In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.

This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.


24

Why Is Employee Engagement So Important?


TOP-QUARTILE ENGAGEMENT WORK UNITS HAVE SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER OUTCOMES THAN THEIR BOTTOM-QUARTILE COUNTERPARTS

PROVING THE VALUE OF THE Q12® :

META-ANALYSIS OUTCOMES

Business units in the top engagement quartile have 48% fewer safety incidents and 41% fewer quality defects than their bottom-quartile counterparts.

-37%

-25%

-65%

-28%

-48%

-41% -41%

10%

21% 22%

-70%

-60%

-50%

-40%

-30%

-20%

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%Turnover

Absen-teeism

Shrink-age

SafetyIncidents

Customer

ProductivityProfitability

High-Turnover

Orgs.

Low-Turnover

Orgs.

PatientSafety

Incidents

Quality(Defects)

Copyright © 2009, 2013 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.

Engagement = Performance

3.76

4.34

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

4

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

2011 2013

Grand Mean Shop A

≈ 30th Percentile

≈ 75th Percentile

98.1%

98.8%

97.6%

97.8%

98.0%

98.2%

98.4%

98.6%

98.8%

99.0%

2011 2013

FTQ Shop A

9.3

6.3

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

2011 2013

Manhours/Detail Shop A

14

5

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

2011 2013

Accidents Shop A

0.94

1.13

0.85

0.95

1.05

1.15

2011 2013

Cost Performance Index Shop A

64% Drop

32% Drop

20% Increase

Performance

Challenge to Social Service Professionals

If Knowledge Sharing is voluntary, how do we increase the

likelihood that colleagues and customers will share their

knowledge…?28

Knowledge Sharing Improvement Areas

• Organizational Level

• Departmental Level

• Supervisory Level

• Personal Level

29

How can you personally be more successful in getting

others to share their knowledge?

Strategic Approach (vs. Piece-meal)

• “a strategy and/or practice used to identify, capture and retain

knowledge, information, skills and relationships that are critical to the

current and future performance of a organization.

32

“Hope and handwringing is not a Strategy”

In Conclusion

• We can increase knowledge sharing (and Employee Engagement) by increasing “Trust” (Friend at work).

• Trust is necessary for employee engagement (and Knowledge Sharing), and Social Interaction is necessary to build that Trust.

• Part of the process to increase Trust is to allow/encourage more social interaction at work (developing the Friend at work). And, there is also the outside of work interaction and relationships.

• The actions that increase Knowledge sharing are also likely to increase Employee Engagement.

• It is also necessary that our employees perceive that our management is committed to knowledge sharing (and Employee Engagement).

33

Really - In Conclusion

• Knowledge Sharing is a gift.

• So, how do you encourage gift giving?

• And, are you ready to receive the gift?

34

• Do Nothing

– Expected Results?

• Do Something

– Expected Results?

35

Options for Action

Contact Information

• Robert E. Downing, Ed.D.

(757) 467-3688, cell (757) 717-3416

[email protected]

36

mailto:[email protected]

• Conoco-Phillip’s knowledge retention strategy slides and presentation materials:

– - Slides: http://www2.apqc.org/aug2014kmcc- Recording: http://webmedia.apqc.org/il80web20025/Marketing/2014_Webinars/2014.8.21_August_KM_CC.wmv

• Additionally, The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) freely shares their KM materials:

http://www.tva.gov/knowledgeretention/index.html

• Finally, let me also suggest that the Knowledge Management materials from The America Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) offer a wealth of information.

http://www.apqc.org/

37

Resources

http://www2.apqc.org/aug2014kmcc

http://webmedia.apqc.org/il80web20025/Marketing/2014_Webinars/2014.8.21_August_KM_CC.wmv


http://www.apqc.org/

References

• American Productivity & Quality Center. (2005b). Knowledge management: Building and sustaining effective communities of practice. Training manual. Houston, Texas: Author.

• Connelly, C. E., Zweig, D., Webster, J., & Trougakos, J. (2012). Knowledge hiding in organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(1), 64-88.

• Halbert, G. D., (2012, April 10) Will Baby Boomers Wreck the Market? (The Sequel). Retrieved from Forecasts & Trends E-letter, http://www.profutures.com/article.php/792/.

• Harter, J.K., Schmidt, F.L., Killham, E.A., & Agrawal, S. (2009). Q12 Meta Analysis: The Relationship between engagement at work and organizational outcomes. Washington, D.C.: Gallup University Press.

• Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Staples, D. S. (2001). Exploring perceptions organizational ownership of information and expertise. Journal of Management Information Systems, 18(1), 151-183.

• Kouzes, J. & Posner, B.(2007). Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

• Longwood, Nancy : Leveraging Employee Engagement for Competitive Advantage : HR’s Strategic Role (2007).

• Nichols, F. (2000). The knowledge in knowledge management. In J. W. Cortada & J. A. Woods (Eds.), The knowledge management yearbook 2000–2001, 12-21. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.

• Rath, T. & Conshie B. (2008) Strengths Based Leadership, New York, NY. Gallup Press

• Webster, J., Brown, G., Zweig, D., Connelly, C. E., Brodt, S., & Sitkin, S. (2008). Beyond knowledge sharing: Knowledge withholding at work. In J. J. Martocchio (Ed.), Research in personnel and human resources management Vol. 27 (pp. 1-37). Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing.

“All clipart images in this presentation are copyrighted works of Microsoft. Individual elements of this presentation may not be copied without the express written permission of Huntington Ingalls Industries.” 38

Tennessee Valley Authority

Knowledge Retention

• Knowledge Retention

• Step 1: Conduct Assessment

• Step 2: Determine Approach

• Step 3: Evaluate

• Glossary


TVA has given us permission to share their materials - 05/06/14

39


Facing the Attrition Challenge

Critical Management Issues

• Focusing on the critical positions where knowledge loss is the greatest

threat

• Identifying and prioritizing the specific knowledge and skills at risk

• Developing concrete, actionable responses to mitigate this loss.

http://www.tva.gov/knowledgeretention/pdf/briefing.pdf

40


The Knowledge Retention Process

• Three main questions:

• 1. Specifically, what knowledge is being lost?

• 2. What are the business consequences of losing each item of

knowledge?

• 3. What can we do about each item?


41


Knowledge Retention Overall Process

Who?•Garner support and resources•Establish sponsors and agents•Define near- and long-term objectives

So What?•Assess consequences of loss•Categorize and prioritize•Confirm

What?•Determine relative risks•Identify positions/people•Prepare interviewers and

interviewees•Conduct interviews/info gathering•Compile lists of knowledge/skills•Confirm

Now What?•Identify responses•Establish schedules,

responsibilities, measures, etc.•Approve and implement•Monitor and extend

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Knowledge Loss Through Attrition

Strategic Lessons Learned

• There is a logical process

• Focus on Critical Positions -- One job at a time

• Lots of detailed work, analysis, planning, and

project management

• Limited number of ways to deal with it.

• Everyone must do their part - management, HR,

supervisors, process owners, KM professionals


43


Knowledge Loss Through Attrition

Tactical Lessons Learned

• Clarify purpose to employees & defuse concerns

• Include newer employees as “observers”

• “How did you learn it?” enlightening

• Clusters of knowledge based on career path

• Safety and reliability/risk drive priorities

• Retirees can be a continuing resource


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