National Academies Press: OpenBook

Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce (2011)

Chapter: Chapter 15 - Developing Knowledge Management Systems

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Page 109
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 15 - Developing Knowledge Management Systems." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14475.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 15 - Developing Knowledge Management Systems." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14475.
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Page 110
Page 111
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 15 - Developing Knowledge Management Systems." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14475.
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Page 111
Page 112
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 15 - Developing Knowledge Management Systems." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14475.
×
Page 112
Page 113
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 15 - Developing Knowledge Management Systems." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14475.
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Page 113

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Chapter 15: Developing Knowledge Management Systems Comprehensive knowledge management systems are necessary to capture critical institutional data and are considered one of the key components to an organization’s continued success. In this chapter, we present challenges, strategies, and workforce practices related to “Developing Knowledge Management Systems.” Exhibit 15-1 provides a snapshot of the chapter. Exhibit 15-1 Snapshot of Chapter 15 Chapter Road Map Concept and Definition Cutting-edge transportation organizations are developing strategies to address the need for capturing institutional knowledge. Workforce Challenges …..…........ 110 Lack of Knowledge Transfer Fleeting Institutional Knowledg e Industry Strategies .…………….. 110 Create People-Focused Knowledge Management Systems Implement Communities of Practice Workforce Practices …..……….. 111 Virginia DOT Knowledge Management Program Definition of Developing Knowledge Management Systems: Involves practices that help organizations better manage the sharing and documentation of institutional and job knowledge within transportation organizations. Workforce Pipeline Target Area Target Career Stages K-12 Comm. Colleges 4 year Colleges Graduate School s Entry-Level Staff Mid-Career Staff Senior Leaders Retirees Developing Knowledge Management Systems Chapter 15 Target Area TRANSPOR ATT ION WORKFORCE PIPELINE 109

15.1 Workforce Challenges. Programs related to “Developing Knowledge Management Systems” are typically designed to address challenges associated with retaining critical institutional knowledge that is often lost during transitions. These challenges should be carefully considered before selecting the program that would best fit the needs of your agency. For example, these are common challenges agencies face: Lack of Knowledge Transfer. Results indicated that organizations are challenged with finding a way to facilitate transfer of knowledge from older workers who are retiring to younger workers. When knowledge transfer does not occur and an employee leaves an organization, the individual filling the position will take longer to become as productive as the original employee due to a learning curve with the process of coming on board. This leaves employers constantly “reinventing the wheel,” thus costing valuable resources such as time and money. Fleeting Institutional Knowledge. Transportation participants indicated that the average age of their employees is around 45. Individuals at the higher end of this spectrum are retiring. Because there is such a large number of potential retirees, organizations are concerned with the amount of institutional knowledge that will be lost from the organization as individuals retire. Organizations are challenged with having an overabundance of unskilled workers and a lack of skilled workers. Participants acknowledged that transportation companies can only support a limited number of unskilled workers as permanent staff. One cause of this issue is the fact that the training required to obtain a skilled position seems to take a significant amount of time to complete. Employees who do not feel they have the time to invest in training in order for advancement to occur also contribute to the retention challenge. 15.2 Industry Strategies. Researchers and program managers identify the following programmatic strategies when describing industry efforts in “Developing Knowledge Management Systems” (see Exhibit 15-2). While these strategies represent the general direction of human resource (HR) departments across the nation, it is important that the specific needs of your agency are used to guide the development and implementation of a program in your agency. Exhibit 15-2 Industry Strategies: Developing Knowledge Management Systems Strategy Strategy Description Create People-Focused Knowledge Management Systems During the past decade, the focus of knowledge management (KM) initiatives has shifted from a strategy of capturing data and explicit information in portals and databases to a strategy of promoting knowledge sharing among people (Cross et al., 2001; Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Parise, 2007). The main advantage of a people-focused strategy is that it enables the sharing of more relevant inferred knowledge, such as employees’ experiences, know-how, and other similar or complementary expertise that cannot be captured in documents (Parise, 2007). Implement Communities of Practice Some organizations use “communities of practice,” where every individual in the state who performs a unique function or provides a certain service to one local area comes together with other individuals doing the same tasks in other locations in the state. They share ideas, give presentations, solve problems, and develop relationships. They meet in person and online to discuss initiatives and at times influence the direction of policy that directly affects the way they perform their tasks. It is important to keep these meetings structured and well- 110 Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce

Exhibit 15-2 (Continued) Industry Strategies: Developing Knowledge Management Systems Strategy Strategy Description facilitated. This is different from a department meeting where attendees perform different tasks but work in the same geographic location. 15.3 Workforce Practices. Four workforce practices that were designed to assist in making the process of “Developing Knowledge Management Systems” within transportation agencies efficient and effective were reviewed, and we identified one workforce practice that was the most noteworthy within this context: Virginia DOT Knowledge Management Program For this practice, we conducted a case study. A summary of the case study is presented below. The full case study can be found on the TRB website at http://trb.org/Main/Blurbs/164747.aspx as part of Volume II: Supplemental Materials. The full case study description details each practice’s background, implementation, maintenance, evaluation, and transferability. Developing Knowledge Management Systems 111

Virginia DOT Knowledge Management (KM) Program Job Type: All ROI: Mid- to Long-term Generation: All Key Program Highlights: o The most long-standing and well- regarded knowledge management program among DOTs o Costs approximately $700,000 a year to run the program o Helps agency better manage the sharing and documentation of institutional and job knowledge within their organization and prevents the loss of key data as individuals leave the agency Virginia DOT Knowledge Management (KM) Program. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has a workforce of roughly 7,600 full-time employees with an average age of 48 years. VDOT established a Knowledge Management (KM) program in 2003. This KM program was in response to significant losses in critical, institutional knowledge during downsizing that occurred at the agency in the early 1990s, and concerns the Commissioner had regarding the larger percentage of the workforce (nearly 30%) that were eligible for retirement within the next 5 years. The KM program comprises the library and the KM Office. The KM Office is responsible for the tacit knowledge and the library is responsible for explicit knowledge, which includes anything that has been codified. The four primary areas within VDOT’s KM program are: Process mapping Organizational network analysis Lessons learned Communities of Practice Process mapping is used within the Communities of Practice. VDOT’s KM program has developed a standard way of doing process mapping to assess the interactions between the different functional areas. The KM program started the process mapping by working with the maintenance, operations, and environmental areas and developing a standard process map that would result in process and procedure manuals and the knowledge mapping that is behind the processes. Organizational network analysis is one part of knowledge mapping. VDOT uses UCINet with an interface developed by the University of Virginia. This interface provides a 10- to 15-minute online survey using targeted questions (dependent on what is being examined). The survey gives management a visual map snapshot of what is happening in the organization so that management can identify where the jams are, who is isolated, what are some overloads, what people are linking other networks or are just a single go-to person, and critical knowledge risk areas. To reduce duplication of effort across the agency, the KM program began working with Communities of Practice to develop one- to two-page-long “lessons learned” documents. Each document succinctly states what the lesson is, gives the context for it, what the resources are that can be used, and the solution. Some of the lessons learned are positive and others refer to actions that did not go well. The “lessons learned” documents are dispersed across the agency via the Intranet and they help to identify new organization- wide processes. The Communities of Practice are ongoing small groups that work on building those knowledge networks, capturing tacit knowledge, and developing better processes. On a regular basis, the community of practice goes through and discovers if there are trends in processes or procedures that lend themselves to the development of a best practice to be mandated across the organization. Most of the implementation costs were associated with staff and travel. On the KM side, there are four full-time staff and one part-time employee, and on the library side, there are two full-time employees and one part-time employee. VDOT estimates it costs approximately $700,000 a year to run the program. 112 Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce

While the KM program encourages each division or operating unit to take credit for all KM accomplishments, the KM program does collect return-on-investment (ROI) data that includes the conduct of a baseline assessment that determines how much time processes are currently taking and the cost of those processes and compares that to the costs avoided or minimized due to the KM actions. Several instances of cost savings, noted in the 2008 agency assessment, suggest the KM program has been overwhelmingly successful. Other Example Practices To serve as an additional resource for agencies interested in “Developing Knowledge Management Systems,” we have included a list of other practices that transportation agencies have implemented for this purpose. Additional information on each of the following practices can be found in one- to two-page summaries within the supplemental materials. Environmental Competency Building International Visitors Program Tapping Retirees to Bridge Skills Gap The practice summaries include information, such as the lead organization, practice description, practice purpose, targeted participants, ROI timeline, influence of the economy, innovativeness, and resources to find out more information on the individual practices. Developing Knowledge Management Systems 113

Next: Chapter 16 - Restructuring Benefits and Compensation »
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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 685: Strategies to Attract and Retain a Capable Transportation Workforce includes straight-forward, implementable practices that transportation Human Resources (HR) managers and hiring professionals can use to help improve the recruitment and retention of qualified employees in their organizations.

The report provides information on workforce challenges, industry strategies, and detailed descriptions of noteworthy practices within each of 15 recruitment and retention categories.

Volume II: Supplemental Material is available online as an ISO image, which can be used to produce a CD-ROM. Volume II includes an introductory document summarizing the content of the supplemental materials and provides full case studies and summaries of other example practices related to the recruitment and retention practices.

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