Enterprise portals capture the power and potential of the Internet, not just to maximize business efficiencies, but also to redefine, restructure and revalue the employee experience, a key responsibility of the human resource organization in the Internet economy. These measures have been linked empirically through several years of research, demonstrating a clear connection among the company's efforts at creating a satisfying and stimulating work environment, the shopping experience and satisfaction of its customers and, ultimately, Sears' financial performance. Further, the site immediately links users to a library of over 800 best practices known to characterize stores with either superior or greatly improved performance on a variety of the assessment dimensions. Thus, managers are able to immediately connect an identified problem or improvement opportunity with practical action tools contributed by other store managers. While this statement is true, Abramson argues that it bears refining.
Technology is important.
Carefully selected and designed technologies inevitably become the connective tissue in any organization that hopes to identify and build upon its intellectual capital. It is just that technology by itself is only one piece of a solution. The insights and observations that Abramson makes about KWorld are a great source of lessons learned about how effective knowledge management can become the cornerstone for knowledge worker high performance. Doing so, he says, is not only cost-effective, but is a significant factor in employee retention, one of the cornerstones for building a world class workforce. Finally, Loofbourrow addresses how e-workforce communications can assist telecommuters.