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(KCU), to each submission. Various denominations of KCUs were created for different
types of contributions. For example, a body of knowledge submission or a technical white
paper was assigned higher denomination than a project snapshot. The KCUs awarded
to the submissions accrued to the contributors, who could trade them for books, music,
and other products from an e-commerce company.
The KCU scheme was a win-win situation for both the KM program and the
employees. The program received the extensive attention and participation — the system
was populated with first-time knowledge assets, and many employees earned up to $250
in KCUs. The scheme also ensured a market-driven approach toward keeping the system
lean and current. Knowledge assets with low composite KCUs were automatically phased
out by the system.
Adding Satellite Portals
Much before the launch of the program, various departments, projects, and even
interest groups within Infosys maintained their own portals. After formalizing the
program, an option was to phase them out in favor of a single KM portal. But the KM
Group decided to add them as satellites to the KM portal. Dr. J.K. Suresh, principal
knowledge manager, explained the reasons behind this step: “Employees had a consid-
erable amount of self-pride attached to these portals, and it would have been counter-
productive to wean them away from these portals and get them to the KM system. Then,
in the initial stages of the KM program, some of these portals had better content than
the KM portal itself. So the only way out was to let them grow as stand-alone portals and
to integrate their content with the KM portal. This enriched the KM portal and ensured
greater organizational visibility to their content. Second, those portals gave us clear hints
of emerging communities of practice, and removing them would have discouraged those
communities.”
Growth and Consolidation
By 2001, the program had captured the attention of the employees. But the KM
Group now faced the challenge to convert the initial interest into a long-term involvement.
As Dr. Suresh explained, “While the material rewards served the purpose well, they were
imperfect instruments in sustaining the involvement of employees. It was time to move
up Maslow’s hierarchy.” The group planned a multipronged strategy to address this
issue (Nanda & DeLong, 2001).
Ensuring Recognition
In an organization of nearly 10,000 people, need for recognition emerged as a strong
motivator for employees. The KM Group gradually started underplaying the importance
of the KCU scheme, and added a scoreboard on the KM portal displaying the top-nine
submissions in each content type. The scoreboard was updated every month and the
names of winning employees were highlighted in all corporate communications.
Highlighting Benefits
Addressing a still-higher level of employees’ needs, the KM group started empha-
sizing organizational and group-level benefits of knowledge sharing and application.