Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the PKF Texas – Entrepreneur’s Playbook® page of the PKF Texas website.
In a recent study on the Blended Workforce, I noted some challenges that lay ahead. Information technology can help people and organizations bridge the divides of age, work style, distance and nationality. IT can also enable the blended workforce to add value through improved relationships with customers, partners, and talent pools to reduce costs by identifying new efficieniencies and adding value through innovation in processes, products, and services. In this study, Microsoft suggests that information technology plays a role in the following three important areas:
Knowledge management. Enabling the retention and transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge across generations, cultures and organizational boundaries.
Mobility and virtual workforce management. Extending the capabilities and protections of the enterprise and its data resources to people, anywhere, anytime.
Collaboration and coordination. Reducing virtual distances, thereby facilitating well-managed teamwork, and bringing partners into critical processes.
In this edition of the Playbook, I will focus on only one area, Knowledge Management. Older works have knowledge gained from years of on the job experience. But companies cannot afford to keep these senior personnel on staff with escalating salaries. The development of knowledge systems and knowledge networks will become a priority. Today we use Blogs, Wikis, RSS and other tools to stay up to date. Today, I see that Facebook is allowing me to stay in touch with over a dozen communities at a time. This tool and LinkedIn are just two support tools I use daily. And finally, you need to encourage all personnel of all ages to as we say “play well with others”, by encouraging and rewarding learning processes.