Knowledge isn't power, says Xerox

The idea that knowledge is power has been knocked on the head by researchers who claim that high-performing employees are more likely to be ones who proactively share information with their colleagues.

High-flyers consistently recognise the value of sharing knowledge. In contrast, employees rated as 'low performers' tend to be hoarders who avoid contributing to the knowledge pool, according to research commissioned by Xerox.

But more than highlighting this link, it seems that coming across as a knowledge-hoarder during an interview could be a disadvantage.

Knowledge sharing could be used as the basis for hiring decisions, with recruiters analysing the language used by job candidates as the latest tool in the war for hot talent.

High performers consistently "speak of knowledge" when talking about their work, whereas lower performers "speak of information".

"We believe the findings have significant implications for how companies should view and address the culture of sharing in the workplace.

"Armed with this insight, a manager might decide to assign certain people to certain projects, to hire one otherwise equally qualified applicant over another or pair certain employees with one another," the report says.

"We caution against using language analysis alone. Additional validation work would be required to use such techniques. However, based on our research we believe language analysis shows promise as potential selection method," it adds.

Meanwhile, traditional knowledge management systems have failed to address information overload, because of costly manual upkeep and an inability to consistently access the most relevant responses to employee questions, according to service and support automation software company SupportSoft.

Some 90 per cent of businesses suffer from "information overload", according to the study, and the perception of information overload is 20 per cent higher among companies that already have knowledge management systems in place.

Analyst Gartner Group estimates that 80 per cent of a company's digital resources are not accessible to the enterprise as a whole because they are stored as personal files on individual computing systems.