Rebecka Isaksson.
of research showing that the average work week has increased for many em- ployees by sometimes as much as eight hours per week. Productivity has gone up for sure and companies appreciate that. But to maintain that level of pro- ductivity without taking employee well- being into account poses a great risk for burn-out, losing competent employees and thus creating a knowledge drain.”
Value of trust
One of the revealing statistics Rebecka uses in her blog – from the Microsoft Work Trend Index report (https://bit. ly/3NvXwst) – is that 85 per cent of lead- ers trust their staff less when they are hybrid working.
But Rebecka adds that employers who do trust their staff are benefi ting most: “The most successful organisations that I have seen to date are the ones that do not dictate how many days a week, or which days of the week, that employ- ees are allowed to work from home or required to work from the offi ce. “They are the ones that embrace the possibility to create a fl exible hybrid work model, so that employees can plan and integrate their personal and profes- sional lives. That drives quality of life and employee wellbeing and happiness that I am convinced is a pre-requisite for a productive, creative and innova- tive work force.
“Knowledge Management becomes centric in this when we take the broader view on KM and focus on both the tacit and the explicit knowledge. AI is a great enabler here, as it allows us to codify and fi nd information that is not necessarily written down in a structured format but scattered across internal and external sites, conversations and chats, and documents.”
April-May 2023 Flexible work
Rebecka acknowledges there may be dif- ferences between employer and employee benefi ts from hybrid working, pointing out: “From the employee point of view, I think it is safe to say that most people are driven and motivated by feeling valued and relevant. That the work that we do is ap- preciated and recognised. We want to feel seen, heard and included. Perhaps most importantly we need to feel trusted. “We are constantly torn between work and family obligations, and we have per- sonal needs to rest, recuperate and look after our health that are sometimes hard to fulfi l if you have to be in the offi ce from nine to fi ve, fi ve days a week. “During the pandemic we saw an increasing tolerance amongst colleagues and between employees and employers to work in more fl exible ways – we had our kids pop in during a Teams call, or we took a one-to-one as a walk-and-talk, when the situation allowed. And that gen- erated more freedom to get up and move,
get some fresh air, have dinner with the family or walk the dog.
“In many ways it enhanced our quality of life and enabled us to produce more, with higher quality, as our physical and mental wellbeing was also tended to. There shouldn’t be any need to change that now. Why there is such a lack of trust from many employers point of views, in spite of all the research pointing to the op- posite, is hard to explain and quite frankly hard to understand.”
Virtual engagement
Much of Rebecka’s work has focused on how to identify, gather and use the tacit knowledge in an organisation, not only the explicit: “My career in KM started some 10 years ago. I was in a Project Manager role, at the Swedish subsidiary of MS, and through an internal project I came into contact with the Communities of Practice – special interest groups, or discussion fora, that largely resided in the MS professional services division. Their purpose was connecting people across a
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