The Value of Company-Wide Knowledge Management

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    All too often, companies take a piecemeal approach to knowledge management. Different teams use different platforms or shared drives to collect their knowledge, which creates knowledge silos, interferes with cross-functional collaboration, and prevents organizations from recognizing the full value of their collective knowledge.

    Forward-thinking companies are increasingly adopting a company-wide approach to knowledge management. By establishing a single source of truth for organization-wide knowledge, businesses can reduce the risk of losing knowledge, help their employees be more productive, and onboard faster, among other benefits.

    We know that Bloomfire customers see the value of company-wide knowledge management every day. In order to quantify the value, we looked at 2020-2021 platform data and conducted a 2022 customer survey. You can check out the highlights in the infographic and blog post below.

    value of company-wide knowledge management infographic

    Time Savings

    Time wasted searching for information is often one of the top productivity challenges that employees and employers face. According to research from McKinsey, the typical knowledge worker spends close to 20% of their workweek searching for internal information or tracking down coworkers who can help them. Not only does that take time away from more impactful activities, but it’s also incredibly frustrating for employees–which can hurt morale and increase turnover.

    Fortunately, a company-wide knowledge management strategy–and the technology to support it–can save employees significant time when they need to track down information. With Bloomfire, users can perform a keyword search and use configurable filters to quickly hone in on relevant information. In our recent customer survey, we found that 80% of users save at least an hour per week by reducing their searching time. 30% save at least three hours per week, and 10% save more than four hours.

    graphic of time saved using Bloomfire

    Multiply the average time savings by the number of employees in your organization and the number of workweeks in the year and you’ll see that the productivity gains quickly add up.

    Self-Driven Searches

    How do team members at your company typically get answers to their questions? If you don’t have a centralized knowledge management platform in place, your team members may rely on sending one-off emails or direct messages to internal subject matter experts (SMEs). From there, they have to wait until the SME is available to respond–or direct them to someone else who can better answer the question. And when they do get a response, it remains walled off in their email inbox or a chat thread. Other team members don’t know that this information is available and may end up asking the same question of the same SME (lather, rinse, repeat).

    The best way to eliminate these delays and reduce repetitive questions? Empower employees to search through all the knowledge in the organization to see if the information they need is already available. Not only does this enable team members to get the information they need faster, but it also reduces the number of disruptions to your SMEs.

    We looked at Bloomfire platform data for org-wide use cases and found that the average user performs a keyword search 103 times per year. That’s 103 fewer emails, chat app notifications, rabbit holes, and general disruptions.

    Faster Onboarding

    A streamlined onboarding experience is good for both new hires and employers. According to research from the Brandon Hall Group, a strong onboarding process improves new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%. And when companies have a smooth onboarding process, new hires are able to get up to speed and feel confident in their roles faster.

    In our survey of our customers, 93% reported that they have been able to onboard new team members faster since implementing Bloomfire. New hires can turn to Bloomfire to review onboarding materials, on-demand training recordings, answers to common questions, and more. This enables them to learn at their own pace, benefit from the knowledge of their peers, and avoid information overload.

    Knowledge Retention

    An estimated 3 to 4.5 million U.S. workers leave their job every month, and when they go, they take valuable expertise and tacit knowledge with them–unless their organization has a strategy in place to preserve their knowledge. A platform like Bloomfire gives organizations a way to capture knowledge in whatever form it takes and organically grow their knowledge base over time, rather than scrambling to collect years of expertise in a hasty exit interview.

    In our survey, 84% of Bloomfire customers said they feel more confident and are less worried about losing knowledge due to employee turnover and internal mobility. That means less stress, less frustration over reinventing the wheel, and fewer disruptions when employees leave. It also means that future employees can continue benefiting from the knowledge of current employees for years to come.

    Interested in learning more about the value Bloomfire can add to your organization?

    Schedule a call with one of our team members.

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