On knowledge management from the perspective of employee selection, use and retention

Employees are the most precious wealth of enterprises! I can't remember who said this sentence first, but many people have said this sentence, because people are the core elements of an enterprise, and their subjective initiative has promoted the birth and development of an enterprise.

According to western economics, the most basic factors of production include: labor, land, capital and entrepreneurial talents. On the one hand, this definition affirms the importance of employees to production, on the other hand, it also underestimates the talents of employees relative to entrepreneurial talents. Especially in the era of knowledge economy, manual labor is increasingly replaced by machines, and knowledge workers are gradually becoming the mainstream, and the boundaries between the concepts of labor force, knowledge workers and intellectual capital are increasingly blurred.

From the perspective of knowledge management, an enterprise is a field of knowledge activities, and the main factors that constitute this field are people, knowledge and infrastructure. People and knowledge are easy to understand, and other elements supporting enterprise knowledge activities can generally be classified as infrastructure, including office space, network and office software and hardware, organizational structure, etc.

People or employees are undoubtedly the most important factor. They bring or create knowledge, their knowledge needs drive the innovation and flow of knowledge, and all infrastructure is to accelerate the orderly flow of knowledge and knowledge innovation.

In the practice of human resources in enterprises, "selecting, educating, using and staying" is a common method to divide the life cycle of employees. Its basic corresponding human resources modules are: recruitment, training, talent development and employee relations. From the perspective of knowledge management, it corresponds to external knowledge introduction, internal knowledge introduction, knowledge application and knowledge retention. Here, the concepts of knowledge and intellectual resources can basically be used together.

Introduction of external knowledge. For enterprises, strategies need the support of capabilities, and capabilities always do not match, because strategies are often aimed at the future, rather than untouched areas. This mismatch is the gap of enterprise knowledge, which can be divided into endogenous growth and external introduction. Endogenous is internal cultivation, which will be mentioned later; Introduction is recruitment.

In order to facilitate understanding, according to different types, I divide the knowledge gap into: puzzle gap and container gap. The so-called jigsaw puzzle gap refers to the enterprise's low or no mastery of the target knowledge, which is typically a brand-new business or a business with poor performance due to lack of knowledge. To fill the gap in the puzzle, it is often necessary to recruit professionals through social recruitment. Applicants are like puzzles, which will bring obvious changes to the company's knowledge map after joining the company. Of course, the puzzle gap can also be solved by endogenous methods, such as research and development, participation in external training or introduction with the help of consultants, but these methods are often slow and uncertain.

The so-called container gap means that the whole enterprise has the target knowledge, but the knowledge needs human control to play its role. To fill this gap, candidates often do not need to have very professional knowledge, but only need to meet the requirements of general ability and knowledge, and they can quickly introduce relevant professional knowledge after joining the job. In fact, most corporate initiatives are actions taken by enterprises to make up for the knowledge gap of containers.

Internal knowledge import. Whether it is a puzzle or a container, new employees need to introduce internal knowledge after entering the enterprise. The most basic thing is that new employees, represented by new employee training, enter the mold and conduct various job trainings for new employees. Only continuous investment in employee training can help employees understand and integrate into the company faster and ensure the continuous appreciation of employees' intellectual capital.

The introduction of internal knowledge not only refers to the introduction (training) of knowledge itself, but also the establishment of knowledge connection. Only by establishing effective connections can knowledge flow to employees continuously. Training can only solve the problem of inheritance of stock knowledge, and connection can solve the problem of continuous interaction of incremental knowledge.

Knowledge application. Employees use their knowledge and initiative to solve enterprise problems, which is the application of knowledge in enterprises. The application process of knowledge is actually the process of knowledge flowing and emerging, which includes three factors: knowledge, knowledge potential difference and conduction path.

The first is where does knowledge come from? It is the introduction of external knowledge, the accumulation of internal knowledge and the research and development of new knowledge mentioned above. The second is where the knowledge has gone, that is, the business demand, that is, the gap mentioned above. In the physical world, there is the possibility of flow when there is potential difference, and so is the knowledge world. Why is it possible? Because it is necessary to follow the trend and establish a connection-conduction path.

Therefore, in order to give full play to the value of knowledge application, from the perspective of knowledge, it is necessary to encourage innovation to create knowledge, establish a smoother knowledge channel, and let knowledge flow quickly within the enterprise and flow into the enterprise from the outside. From the perspective of employees, we should fully mobilize the initiative of employees and create conditions for them to use knowledge: a task-oriented and convenient way to acquire knowledge. That is, create knowledge demand through tasks and promote knowledge innovation, storage and dissemination through good infrastructure construction (processes, tools, culture, etc.). ).

Knowledge retention. Knowledge retention is consistent with employee retention, and both hope to preserve and increase the value of people and knowledge through retention. The difference is that when employees are inevitably lost, employee retention will end or fail, and the value of knowledge retention will become more and more prominent. But this is not to say that there are contradictions between them. Knowledge retention is like employee accident insurance. No one is full of hope for insurance cash, but if employee turnover really happens, at least this insurance can reduce the loss of intellectual capital for enterprises.

To some extent, knowledge retention is also an important way of employee retention. Because knowledge retention is not a one-time knowledge gain when employees leave their jobs, but runs through the employees of the whole enterprise. As mentioned above, in addition to the extraction of knowledge and experience, the core of this retention is to establish the knowledge connection between employees and enterprises. When employees are integrated into the enterprise's knowledge network (that is, interpersonal-emotional network, human-computer interaction-tool network), when employees find their own position in this network and realize the multiplication of ability, value and emotion through network cooperation, employees will be more willing to stay in the enterprise.

In fact, knowledge management not only runs through the employee's life cycle, but also extends to the upstream and downstream of the life cycle: for the "employees" who leave their jobs, maintaining the basic knowledge connection is likely to retain and create more business opportunities. For example, if 100 candidates all know the relevant knowledge of the enterprise, they may become 100 potential customers or public opinion supporters, regardless of whether they finally join the company or not, and so do the former employees.