Abstract
The major goal of every organizational strategy is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of operation which could lead to organizational performance and success. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an abrupt change to the way most knowledge-based organizations work. For many knowledge-based organizations, periods of rapid technological changes and pandemic era are also periods of incessant struggle to maintain a high-performance work environment. These organisations are now beginning to consider the longer-term impact of COVID-19 including some potentially positive changes to the way that they work. Employees within these organizations were forced to work remotely for the first time during lockdown and had to adjust to working from home almost overnight while others were unable to work at all. The aim of this chapter was to determine the role of human resource management and knowledge management in improving service delivery within knowledge-based organizations.
TopIntroduction
With rapid changes in the business environment and the emergence of COVID 19 era, knowledge-based organizations are increasingly looking at their knowledge and human resources as their unique assets that can provide sustained competitive advantage through their products and services. A knowledge-based organization is a collection of people and supporting resources that creates and applies knowledge through continued interaction (Zack, 2003). Knowledge-based organizations have been characterized as enterprises in which the key asset is knowledge and its competitive advantage thus comes from having and effectively using knowledge (Zack, 2003). The core mission of knowledge-based organization is to acquire, manipulate and deploy information and knowledge. It strives to be a learning organization‖ in which its members, both individually and collectively are continuously enhancing their capacity to produce results and adapt to changing circumstances. This type of an organization is guided by a commitment to organizational excellence through pursuits such as benchmarking best practices and the fostering of collaborative relationships among various stakeholders. Examples of knowledge-based organizations include government agencies, universities, the military, the law office, accounting firms, marketing firms, software companies and manufacturing companies, just to name a few.
Employees within various knowledge- based organizations were forced to work remotely for the first-time during lockdown whereby working from home for some other employees is a great experience as they found that they are lot more productive without the day-to-day distractions of an office environment. Technologies such as Zoom and MS Teams are used for their meetings and daily stand-up check-ins. However, other employees realised that they thrive on the personal interaction and vibe of a brick-and-mortar office space and could not wait to get back to their offices where they were not distracted by other tasks at their homes. Business organisations which were able to shift more quickly from an hour-based working model to an output-based working model are benefiting the most from the new way of working, with a likely increase in employee motivation as well. However, as outcomes replace hours, the performance management approach of the organisation also needs to shift from monitoring people to monitoring performance. This implies a greater focus on output and an emphasis on the employee’s personal responsibility over the number of hours worked.
Some of the issues that need to be addressed are whether knowledge-based organizations’ current performance management system is aligned with this shift approach, and whether all human resources and knowledge managers within knowledge-based organizations are suitably able to manage their employees in this new normal business environment. Therefore, one of the key tasks for every knowledge-based organisation is the effective management of human resources in order to provide a competitive advantage and good quality service delivery to their customers or clients. Benton (2002) described service delivery as an essential function in the relationship between government bodies and citizens. Service delivery is thus part of a complex relation between government, society and citizens (West, 2004). The South African Board for Personnel Practice (SABPP) (2012), the professional body of human resources, defines service delivery as an influencing and partnering approach in the provision of human resources services meeting the needs of the organisation and its employees which enables delivery of organisational goals and targets. Service quality consists of two dimensions, namely: technical and functional quality. Technical quality describes the outcome of the service delivery, in other words, what a customer is left with after service delivery while functional quality is concerned with service delivery and the perception of interaction a customer perceives during the delivery of the service (Storbacka, Strandvik & Grönroos, 1994).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Knowledge Management: Knowledge management is the explicit and systematic management of intellectual capital and organizational knowledge, as well as the associated processes of creating, gathering, validating, categorizing, archiving, disseminating, leveraging, and using intellectual capital for improving the organization and the individuals in it. It includes all of the interacting and interdependent elements that pertain to monitoring and controlling knowledge such as creating and acquiring knowledge, using knowledge, retaining knowledge and sharing knowledge.
Human Resource Development: Human resource development as a process for developing and unleashing human expertise through organization development and personnel training for the purpose of improving organizational performance and services. human resource development as all the processes, systems, methods, procedures and programmes an organization employs to develop its human resources in order to equip employees to be able to contribute to organizational performance.
Human resource management: Human resource management is a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets, the people working there who individually or collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives. It encompasses recruiting and selecting the right person, ensuring appropriate compensation and remuneration, offering incentives or appropriate rewards for performance, training and development opportunities, promotion, proper performance management and appropriate grievance handling.
Service Delivery: Service delivery is an influencing and partnering approach in the provision of human resources services meeting the needs of the organization and its employees which enables delivery of organizational goals and targets. It is thus part of a complex relation between government, society, and citizens.
Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Since the year 2020, COVID-19 affected almost all countries and more than 50 million people around the world. It has governments operating in a context of radical uncertainty, and faced with difficult trade-offs given the health, economic and social challenges it raises.