On-the job knowledge sharing: how to train employees to share job knowledge

Abstract

One of the challenging issues many organizations are facing is to find the best ways to encourage employees share what they have learned on their jobs. Rewarding employees may be one of the techniques used to promote knowledge sharing but there are still psychological barriers preventing employees from sharing knowledge. In many cases, rewarding employees for sharing knowledge ends up in developing the behaviour of hoarding knowledge among employees. Based on a review of existing literature, this article explains how employers can make employees practice knowledge sharing in their daily work activities. The article introduces 12 approaches on how knowledge sharing can be cultivated in the job and train employees to accept that it is their job to share knowledge. Some of the methods discussed include; peer assist, training and mentoring, challenging projects, job description, job rotation, cross training, and sharing sessions. The article also discusses how on-the-job knowledge sharing can promote individual performance among employees. The intention of this article is to provide a framework that helps organizations to choose various methods of knowledge sharing that suit the organization’s needs in order to cultivate sharing of job knowledge and to save the knowledge as an asset.