Leading a remote team is hard work, but knowledge management can be the magic solution to many problems.

It’s already pretty tough to lead a team, be it 5 or 25 people. Now take away the traditional office environment and you’re facing the bigger challenge of guiding a remote staff, with different cultures and backgrounds, plenty of distractions, and multiple company tools to deal with. 🚨

And let’s be real. What happens when your employees can’t find answers quickly or if their sources are outdated? They waste time or base decisions on inaccurate data, to say the least. That comes with a cost.

But how can remote leaders handle this in the most efficient way possible? That’s where knowledge management comes in.

What Is Knowledge Management?

Put simply, knowledge management is all about *making sure that+ **the right information is available to the right people at the right time. 😉

Knowledge management can involve:

1️⃣ Creating new knowledge — by doing research or talking to experts;2️⃣ Organizing existing knowledge — so it’s easy to find and use later**; and3️⃣ Sharing that knowledge with** others — so everyone can benefit from it.

How can Knowledge Management Impact Remote Teams?

The idea of creating a knowledge management strategy from scratch might seem a daunting and time-consuming task. But remote team leaders can take great advantage of it in no time.

Here are 5 ways knowledge management can boost productivity and work quality in a remote team!

1. Better Communication and Motivation🗣️

Poor communication in your workplace is a major obstacle — especially in the case of remote teams. It can lead to situations where one colleague has information that isn’t shared with others — the so called knowledge silos. This may cause disconnection and prevent collaboration amongst colleagues that are already physically apart.

On the other hand, when your employees can easily access the information they need and stay up-to-date with recent changes and project statuses, they’re more likely to be motivated and engaged in their work. They feel included, informed, and more likely to trust and work well together.

This certainly leads to lower churn rates and higher job satisfaction, boosting team engagement, productivity, and accuracy. 😄

2. Increased Team Efficiency 📊

When working remotely, your team will often waste time searching for information and trying to decide which source to use. This is not a projection. In fact, a report from McKinsey Global Institute estimates that workers spend 19% of their time searching and gathering information.

This wastes valuable time, reduces productivity, and has a high cost. For instance,** in a team of 30, an average of six people spend their time looking for information. All day, every day.** 🤯

That alone is so haunting that we’ve created a simple Excel template to estimate the cost of search to your team (you can download it for free here).

The good news is that a centralized knowledge base with a strong and reliable search engine can increase your team efficiency and effectiveness, by organizing relevant information in a way that’s easy to find for everyone.

3. Higher Autonomy and Easier Onboardings 🛫

Effective knowledge management is not only about enhancing communication and efficiency among team members. It also leads to increased staff autonomy and facilitated onboardings.

In a traditional office setup,** an employee could easily walk up to their colleagues or to you and ask questions.+ For remote teams, this is not an option.* Maintaining a solid knowledge management system in place can help them access the information they need quickly and without having to rely on others.

Now think of new hires during their onboarding process.+ They can find answers to common questions and get the hang of the job on their own*, much faster and without the usual hustle too. 🏄‍♂️

And you get to enjoy the benefits as well. A more autonomous team unburdens their leader and frees up your time to focus on high-level tasks and actual administration. Starting to see a pattern here? 😎

4. No Need to Reinvent the Wheel 🛞️

With knowledge management, remote teams can easily access and re-use documents that have been created in the past, without needing to start from scratch each time. This means your team no longer has to waste time recreating work that has already been done before, but can instead focus on high-value activities that move the group forward.

What’s more, by avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort, your team can reduce the risk of errors and it’s easier for you to establish best practices and standard operating procedures. When coworkers have detailed guidelines for their workflows and everyday assignments, they can perform better with less supervision. 🕺🎶

5. Knowledge Management with Curiosity 🔍️

Behind a successful team, is a great leader with impressive tools.

The right solution can help your crew stay connected, work together, and solve problems more efficiently, saving a ton of time in the long run.

And nothing works better for knowledge management than Curiosity. 🗃️

Curiosity is a powerful search bar that can go through all business files and apps at once. It runs with products your team is already using, such as Outlook, Google Suite, Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Atlassian, and Slack. Coworkers can add different accounts, and it’s possible to share Workspaces and save searches for later.

The app is adaptable to multiple data sources and use-cases, and setting up is really simple, with pre-defined connectors. A launcher command center boosts its ease of use and your overall experience, so your team can perform more with less distractions. 🚀

And the best part? Everything is indexed locally, encrypted and locked 🔐— so that no data ever leaves your premises. C**uriosity doesn’t store anything,** to keep s***ecurity levels higher than ever.️

Wrapping Up

As a leader, great things happen when you value knowledge management inside your team. 🕵️✨

Remote employees can find relevant information more easily, and become more productive, autonomous, and motivated. And you get to focus on more important tasks, by ensuring the knowledge in your database is relevant, accurate, and accessible to all.

And with the right tools in hand, knowledge management can connect people with no effort, regardless of their physical location. Count on* Curiosity** to empower your team and help them get more done!* 🤸💥

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