Capturing Tacit Knowledge Through Enterprise Social

What are an organization’s most important resources? Hopefully “people” are at (or towards) the top of the list. Why are people important to the success of the organization? They don’t just do the work. They have the knowledge, skills, and information to get the job the done.
Enterprise Social
How do people acquire and retain the knowledge, skills, and information necessary for the organization to be successful? They have probably learned through education, training, and on-the-job experience. How much of that knowledge, skill, and information is documented, searchable, and able to be relayed to others? Probably not enough.

Enterprise social is a modern method for capturing, searching, and retaining the tacit knowledge that people across the organization accumulate throughout their tenure. Tacit knowledge is the part of the job that employees “just know,” even though it’s not documented anywhere. Perhaps they were verbally trained by a predecessor, created process improvement on their own, or implemented an efficiency they learned in training. Either way, if these employees—who can be mailroom clerks or CEOs or anywhere in between—leave the organization, their tacit knowledge goes with them.

SharePoint and Yammer provide organizations with enterprise social options. In SharePoint, employees can interact through newsfeeds and community sites. Yammer offers similar features through its conversations, groups, and networks. Even more options are available for organizations utilizing Office 365.

What are the similarities between SharePoint and Yammer as applied to capturing, searching, and retaining tacit knowledge? First, SharePoint newsfeeds and Yammer conversations allow people to comment on posts made by colleagues. Those posts could be questions, project status updates, documents, etc. Next, posts can include hashtags or mentions. For example, if a new employee wanted to know what the next company holiday was, she could write (on SharePoint or Yammer), “What is the next company #holiday?” If she wanted to direct the question to her Human Resources rep Pam, she could mention @Pam. Because the hashtag #holiday is searchable, now anyone in the organization could search for “holiday” and see the new employee’s question, as well as Pam’s response. This allows Pam to answer the question just once. Additionally, by mentioning Pam in the post, the question will display in Pam’s SharePoint newsfeed or Yammer’s conversations feed.

Tagging documents with hashtags is an efficient way to gather feedback that is thus documented, searchable, and retained. Including mentions on tagged documents allows specific employees to know that their feedback has been requested or that others have entered comments. While hashtags and mentions are available in both SharePoint and Yammer, they are not connected. In other words, a hashtag included in a Yammer post can be located through a SharePoint search, and vice versa.

Community sites in SharePoint and groups in Yammer are similar features in that they bring colleagues with similar interests together. Both can be open to the entire organization or private where only approved members can view and contribute content. Community sites also allow mixed modes where an employee can view content but must join the group to contribute to the group’s conversation. Organizations that want a one-stop-shop for their intranet and enterprise social have the option of integrating Yammer into SharePoint. If the organization has not yet upgraded to at least Service Pack 1 (SP1) for SharePoint 2013, Yammer feeds can be added to SharePoint as a web part. Organizations on SP1 or higher can choose to replace SharePoint’s social features with Yammer.

Sometimes, an organization may want to allow non-employees, such as contractors, clients, or vendors, to communicate with its employees. In SharePoint, an extranet can be created with uniquely-permissioned site collections and sub-sites. Configuring and maintaining the extranet will require more of the farm administrator’s time and more of the farm’s or network’s resources. Alternatively, an organization can create an internal Yammer network for its employees and an external network with groups for contractors, clients, and vendors.

As an example, the SharePoint community has created an external Yammer network called SPYam. SharePoint practitioners from all over the world post questions, offer advice, and discuss the latest SharePoint news. There are groups for different interests, such as SharePoint 2016, third-party vendor products, business intelligence, Office 365, etc. There is even a group called SharePoint Help, where members can get help from experts whom they’ve never met. It’s just the SharePoint community giving back to the community. To join SPYam, visit www.yammer.com/spyam and enter an email address to sign up.

Enterprise Social

Enterprise Social Spyam

How does an organization choose whether to use SharePoint’s social features or Yammer? Perhaps the best advantage Yammer has is its mobility options. There are apps for Windows, iOS, and Android devices, whether those devices are phones, tablets, or PCs. Yammer is also available through any web browser. Whereas employees frequently need to be on the organization’s network (either on-site or via VPN), the only requirement for Yammer is internet access. Thus, Yammer can be at employees’ fingertips at all times. Additionally, because Yammer is cloud-based, it would still be available if an organization’s network were unavailable. However, organizations also must consider their cloud-storage policies. Anything stored in Yammer is stored in the cloud. Some organizations choose to store documents in SharePoint and just put links to those documents in Yammer in order to comply with cloud-storage policies.

To summarize, there are three keys to capturing tacit knowledge in enterprise social. First, enable the SharePoint social features or start a Yammer network. Second, encourage employees to utilize SharePoint or Yammer for questions; status updates regarding projects, tasks, assignments, or company announcements; and sharing information, including documents or links. Finally, train employees to replace multiple-recipient emails with tagged posts, including hashtags and mentions, so that content is documented, searchable, and retained. As new employees join the team, they will appreciate the ability to search through past posts as opposed to their inbox being overloaded with old emails.

Enterprise Social

Socialized!

About the author Theresa Eller;

Enterprise Social

Theresa Eller

Theresa Eller is a Business Systems Analyst at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, where she specializes in no code solutions, support, and training for business teams. Theresa is a Microsoft Office Specialist certified in SharePoint 2013 and shares her knowledge and experience with the SharePoint community by blogging and by speaking at SharePoint events. Currently serving as president of the Houston SharePoint User Group, Theresa has also served as marketing chair and speaker chair. Prior to following her passion for SharePoint, Theresa spent 11 years as a corporate trainer and holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology. She enjoys cooking, bowling, roller skating, and spoiling her two dogs.

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