Creating your own work wiki can be very beneficial to your company and to your staff, when it comes to organisation and knowledge transfer. A wiki database will enable your company to share information within itself about clients, contracts, businesses and deals. This article considers how to go about creating a work wiki.
Make it Accessible
The most important element of a work wiki is that it is accessible and easy for your staff to use. This means that your employees need to be able to access it from anywhere. Ideally, staff will be able to read up on clients as they are on the way to meet with them, but to achieve this, you need to make the information mobile. Utilising cloud computing services to host your work wiki will enable your employees to do exactly this, and it will make the system accessible to them, whenever it is needed. Also ensure you have reliable and efficient business IT support in place.
Keep it Neat
Keeping your work wiki in good order is very important, because a disorganised and disjointed system will not be properly utilised by staff. To ensure that they are able to use the wiki to its full potential, it is essential that the information management is slick and smooth. Intuitive use is important, because if the system is hard to operate, then it will very quickly stop being used.
Make it Useful
A work wiki has the potential to be very useful to staff if it is correctly utilised, but knowledge-sharing is very important. If you are dropping in on existing clients, for example, then knowing that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are the representative’s favourite, is a valuable bit of information in creating continuity between clients and customers. Other information, like the names of the significant members of staff and details about the right way to approach sales, can really make a difference to your company’s performance.
To make the system useful, you will need to encourage active participation of all the members of staff with the system.
Keep it Appropriate and Secure
One of the minor dangers with creating a work wiki is the inappropriate use of it. Only information that is relevant to business and business relationships should be included in the wiki, and any inappropriate additions must be removed and reviewed. Whilst information like the name of the boss’ wife may be helpful for a personal relationship between staff of the companies, this information is not appropriate knowledge for the business to record, and should certainly not be included.
Security of information is also very important, to ensure that you are not exposing either your business or your clients to any kind of information abuse.
Assess and Review
The creation of a useful, manageable, and productive work wiki is a great target to aim for, but it will not happen overnight. The establishment and use of such a knowledge system can really benefit your company, but to achieve this, you will have to work at it. Assessing and reviewing the system as it develops is essential, so that you can recognise faults and improve recordkeeping.
