Reward Participants

“[We] certify engineers at three levels of expertise . . . . Certifications and performance milestones appear in [a] monthly newsletter, [which] also . . . recognizes engineers for most reused solutions, and tracks knowledgebase activity, such as the number of customers solving their own problems   via the web.”

— Based on an interview with John Swindlehurst, Customer Service Knowledge Engineer, Concerto Software

In successful knowledge management lifecycles, individual participation and organizational commitments are reinforced through incentive programs aligned to performance goals and milestones. The performance management strategy should include a system for motivating initial participation, rewarding individual contribution, recognizing exceptional accomplishments, coaching reluctant participants, and addressing areas of weakness.

Incentives, rewards, and recognition can take many forms such as executive acknowledgment at company meetings, publication in the organization’s newsletter, movie tickets, dinners out, public charts tracking participation, metrics showing the reduction in call times, asking for outside help or the rise of self-service activity, and more. Whatever the organization decides, incentives and rewards should be of real value to the recipients and visible to command staff.

Next: Monitor and Analyze for Improvement