Knowledge Management as an Important Part in the Global Economy - Essay Example

Knowledge management has become very important in the global economy today and the expertise and skills of employees of the firm contribute to competitive advantage. The management of employees and the retention of skilled employees contribute to the competitive advantage which is a function of the Human Resource Department of a firm. The objective of this study is to examine the factors that could help the Human Resources Department of a general organization in the retention of employees.

 At the outset, this section will identify the importance of retaining employees. This will be followed by the current practices that are being used by employers to attract the best candidates to their firm in the first place, which will be supplemented by examples from different organizations on how they monitor employee satisfaction, assess the required parameters and implement steps to motivate and retain the employees.In the process of determining the means to attract employees, the specific role of the HRM departments in different companies will be identified, in ascertaining what successful measures these departments (who is they?

make sure your pronoun references are clear) implemented and how these have contributed to competitive advantage. The need and parameters that are essential for determining the characteristics pertaining to employees’ retention will be identified, i.e, ( i.e.)((is i.e. what you want here? is the meaning clear?) high turnover of employees is damaging to a firm. The views of experts on what retention measures can be adopted by the HRM department will form the concluding and most important part of the Literature Review.

 The operational procedures determine the employee retention and attrition rates and provide insight into the factors responsible for forcing an employee to seek alternative solutions externally. The HRM departments must take these factors into consideration while devising new plans and strategies to retain employees through the use of confidence building measures. Literature Search Strategy            Journal articles dealing with the subject of retention were retrieved using databases such as ProQuest and Emerald.

The search terms that were used include most common words associated with employees and their satisfaction such as ‘employee satisfaction’, ‘employee retention, ‘employee attrition’ etc. These searches elicited several journal articles that were useful in assessing the importance of retention as well as retention strategies. Additionally, several books on Human resource management were also consulted in order to derive supporting material that could be used. Since the specific subject of this study was human resource retention practices at IT firms in Doha in Qatar, additional books dealing specifically with human resources in the Middle East were also consulted.

Articles and web based sources were also used to gather more articles about Middle Eastern firms and human resource practices that are relevant within the context of the Middle East.The Importance of Knowledge in the Global Economy            Knowledge has become a very important resource in today’s global economy. According to OCED (2001), knowledge has now become an even more important resource than the means of production. The importance of knowledge has also been acknowledged by other authors like Warhurst (2008) who recommend that Government policy should be directed towards improving knowledge acquisition through educational institutions.

 The knowledge and professional expertise that workers possess originally or upon having received some formal training related to their line of work is a valuable entity in granting a competitive advantage to a firm (Potter 1999). Enhancement of professional knowledge of the employees through proper training helps change the workplace; and as a result, training and subsequent assessment play an important role in the identification of those employees an organization would seek to retain.