Knowledge sharing at the workplace is essential for any organization that wants to grow and thrive. Successful organizations have a strong knowledge base due to teamwork support, continuous encouragement, and having an effective knowledge management system in place. While everyone in the organization is doing their best to achieve their goals, knowledge sharing can quickly change to knowledge hoarding.

The knowledge that employees share is an integral part of the knowledge-sharing culture. However, most people don’t realize this. Employees who have different perspectives on knowledge sharing will create huge problems for the organization in the long run because knowledge sharing will fail at its core. While the culture of knowledge sharing is developed to boost the efficiency and productivity of an organization, some employees are usually unwilling to share knowledge for different reasons.

Why hoard information?

While knowledge sharing sounds like a simple thing, it’s one of the hardest tasks for employees to perform. Most employees have no idea of the type of information they need to share. When they learn about the organization’s secrets, they tend to stop sharing information. They do this by hoarding the information they have. As we mentioned earlier, there are a couple of reasons that propel them to act in this manner.

1.     Lack of trust

One of the main reasons behind hoarding information is a lack of trust. Employees block and hoard information to stay ahead of their colleagues and receive rewards. To solve this problem, leaders need to focus on the goals and objectives of the organization. Employees need to be rewarded based on their progress. Also, leaders should encourage their employees to work together on projects to create an atmosphere of trust.

2.     Time management

Poor time management always results in failure and dissatisfaction. Every employee in an organization wants to perform their duties and achieve their long-term goals in the shortest time possible. This is why you’ll always find employees busy. With no time to spare, busy employees will have a hard time sharing important information with others. Instead of looking at information sharing as a separate task, leaders should encourage employees to delegate tasks to assignment writing services and include knowledge sharing in their daily tasks to make their work easy.

3.     Failure to understand knowledge sharing

While hiring new employees has its advantages, it’s quite difficult to find a newbie who understands the concept of knowledge sharing. Due to a lack of training on knowledge management and communication, they might fail to know what to do with the knowledge that they’ve been withholding. This problem can be eliminated if leaders find time to train newbies on sharing knowledge properly. Communicating with junior and senior staff regularly, and hosting in-house and web-based training will allow employees to learn more about the process of sharing knowledge. Apart from that, all webinar and training records should be easy to access.

4.     Lack of a common platform to share knowledge

Employees might feel vulnerable if they have to ask for information from upper management. A research study conducted by McKinsey and Company found that the average employee wastes 20 percent of his or her time searching for essential information or looking for a colleague who can help them obtain the knowledge they need. Leaders need to create a knowledge-sharing platform. Studies have shown that the creation of these platforms and using paper writing websites saves 35 percent of an employee’s time.

5.     Knowledge is power

Most employees know that knowledge is power. Therefore, the individual who hoards the most information is considered to be the most powerful in the workplace. Some employees will pile a lot of information in their heads while others lead them to get it. They hope to be treated in a special way for sharing information. Therefore, the management must identify and reward employees who share information and deal with those who hoard it.

6.     Considering information sharing as a non-important task

Some employees consider information sharing as a low-priority task and dedicate most of their time and energy to tasks that they consider beneficial and important. To solve this problem, the upper management should serve as an example to all employees. Leaders should find time to share knowledge with their employees and ensure that their employees do the same. They should also include knowledge sharing as an objective that has to be achieved by every employee in the organization.

7.     Punishing employees for sharing information

Some leaders and employees punish their colleagues for sharing information. As we said earlier, employees need to be trained on the knowledge sharing process to know the kind of information that they need to share. The knowledge-sharing process should be aligned with the goals of the organization.

8.     They think they are sharing information

Employees might be sharing information with their colleagues. However, they could be doing it the wrong way. They could be using the wrong channel or sharing the wrong type of information. Leaders need to show them how to share information using the recommended ways. Upper management also needs to ensure that their employees have the best tools and equipment to perform their duties.

Conclusion

When employees share knowledge properly, the organization will grow and thrive. Knowledge sharing nurtures teamwork, boosts productivity, and builds trust between employees and upper management. Leaders need to train employees regularly and encourage them to share information to promote themselves. Now that you know the reasons behind hoarding information, what are you going to work on today to achieve your goals?

Author Bio:

Jessica Chapman, a dissertation writer and paper writer at Nerdy Writers. She is into sport and politics, enjoys traveling.