In this fast-paced world we live in, it is becoming increasingly more important to be able to perform our jobs on-the-go or in less traditional settings.
Advancements in technology have enabled us as a society to meet these demands, and in some cases, improve our job performance.
However, in order to enhance performance, we need the proper tools and information at our fingertips to do the job well. Because employees may not work directly for an organization or may be remote, it is often hard for them to access the knowledge and answers they need—making the case for a strong knowledge base.
Let’s take a look at how today’s organizations can use knowledge management solutions to accommodate the specific needs of these employees and the customers they serve.
Provide an Extensive Knowledge Base
As the number of remote employees rises, organizations are challenged with how to equip them with the proper knowledge tools. Being a remote employee, you do not have the luxury of consulting with a co-worker or manager in the next cubicle or nearby office if you run into a problem. That’s where having an extensive knowledge base can be beneficial, enabling employees to access the key information they need every day to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their work.
Connect the Workforce
Often being a remote employee can make workers feel a bit disengaged from the rest of the organization. Through knowledge management, remote workers can get answers to their questions, as well as submit feedback, contribute community posts and collaborate with others on topics of interest. It serves as an effective way to connect employees to each other.
Access Anywhere, Anytime
Another type of employee includes those who are in the field for their jobs—such as technicians, truck drivers, and claims adjusters. These type of workers require a way to access the knowledge base on-the-go in a non-traditional work setting. Field employees often do not have access to a computer, so it is important to make the knowledge base accessible through many types of devices including tablets, smartphones, etc.
For example, when a field employee needs information, it can be extremely costly and time-consuming to contact a help desk and wait in a queue to receive assistance. A mobile knowledge base provides a way to get the information and get on with their work.
Contribute in Real Time
Remote and field employees can be some of your best sources of information as new issues arise while out in the field. Having the ability to contribute to the knowledge base in real time can provide great benefit for the organization. Inputting issues that arise and how to address them can better enable the workforce as a whole and work to reduce the time and effort spent searching for answers.
Stay Consistent
Today’s distributed workforce can present a consistency challenge. Having employees in different places, working in different ways can potentially yield a disjointed customer experience. Your customers should feel as though they are receiving the same level of experience no matter the location of the employee they are speaking with.
Knowledge management can help drive this consistency by providing employees across all locations the same information at all times in order to provide the same high-level, consistent customer experience across the organization.
Mobile workers have various needs. They must be able to easily access their companies’ knowledge bases when in the field, retrieve answers on-the-go, contribute information in real time, and have access to the same knowledge as coworkers located in traditional company offices.
Having a robust knowledge base in place—along with technology to support mobile communications across multiple channels and devices—can position your organization to manage and maximize its evolving workforce successfully.
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