After a period in which companies dedicated their efforts to become more efficient in terms of costs and production, through tools such as process reengineering, today it is seen how the competitive advantage is achievable in terms of the development of human and intellectual capital
Some time ago the area in charge of managing human talent was known as personnel management, later it became human resources management, today we speak of human talent management, human capital or the area of organizational learning. Only this evolution of names gives the idea of the changes that have been occurring on this front.
And the fact is that the focus of human resources administration has long ceased to be on the recruitment and selection of personnel or the evaluation of positions, although these are basic tasks of human resource management in any company. Today the organization faces different variables from those of the near past; rapid changes, new technologies, greater competition, globalization, clients with greater power; that make it necessary to turn around and face the new economic outlook as it should be.
We live in what some call the knowledge worker era and it is true, today there is less demand for unskilled labor and every day there is greater demand for people with highly specific knowledge and skills in certain areas. This is why companies must understand that the main task of human resource management, human talent, or whatever you want to call it, if you want to stay competitive, tends towards knowledge management and organizational learning. But what is knowledge management:
Knowledge management is a process that helps organizations find, select, organize, disseminate and transfer the information and experience necessary to carry out activities such as dynamic learning, problem solving, strategic planning and decision-making.
And organizational learning is:
Process that uses knowledge and understanding aimed at improving actions
Fiol and Lyles «Organizational Learning» In: Academy of Management Review No. 10
Knowledge is a fundamental factor whose successful application helps the company to deliver creative and innovative products and services to customers and it is curious that even when most companies have vast reserves of knowledge regarding processes, practices, know-how, Organizational culture and customer experiences, among other factors, are very few that truly use it to create value.
One of the elements that cause this phenomenon lies precisely in the organizational culture, more precisely in the prevention that people have to share and disseminate their know-how within the same company, since they feel threatened by their positions and consider that if no one else knows what they can, can be maintained as essential. This distortion is one of the points to be attacked by the human resources management, the change mentality must be introduced within the people who make up the organization and together with this mentality, the culture of participation and cooperation must be promoted, giving them to understand that if the organization grows, so do they and that said growth will be easier and faster if those who possess certain information and / or valuable knowledge, share it with others.
The only firm competitive advantage an organization has is what it knows and how it uses it.
A four-phase process has been identified that is commonly applied by organizations that transform their knowledge into organizational development, either in new or improved products and services, or in process improvement, cost reduction or other efficiencies:
- Socialization: consists of sharing experiences through observation, imitation and practice. It is usually presented in meetings such as seminars, congresses, courses, conferences, visits to other plants and even in common areas such as the Captura cafeteria: it is the conversion of tacit or implicit knowledge, for example what one observed during the visit to the facilities from the firm in another city or another country, to an explicit form such as the preparation of a report Dissemination: the copying and distribution of explicit knowledge Internalization: the process of experiencing knowledge through an explicit source
It is in this process that human resources management should focus, generating opportunities that allow the implicit knowledge that every organization possesses to an explicit level of development that favors its competitiveness. To do this, knowledge systems must be developed that allow the four phases to be executed periodically and quickly. New technologies have a lot to do here as they facilitate communication and interaction, allowing large multinational companies to have the flexibility to function as small companies where everyone knows each other and can quickly and effectively share valuable information.
