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Written by Rebecca Sanders

When a member of my team announced he was moving interstate a few years ago, I realised I was about to lose someone with four years of specialist product knowledge. My expert in the team, the go-to guy who always had the answer was about to leave. Unfortunately, as an organisation we didn't have the strategies or tools to tap into his knowledge bank and share his know-how with others before he left. And so four years of expertise simply walked out the door. From that moment on my interest in capturing and sharing a leaving employee's knowledge was roused. Then, last year, my manager tasked me with a challenge: recommend effective knowledge capture and transfer strategies for when an employee retires or leaves an organisation.

Rather ironically, as I started to write this article I was offered, and accepted, a new position with a different company. I suddenly became the very type of employee I was writing about - the 'leaving employee'. Unfortunately, like my team member before me, I left the company with a vital asset: my 3 ½ years of knowledge, experience, relationships, insight and information - with little attempt to capture it.

When President Bush announced plans in 2004 to send man back to the moon, the New York Times quoted sceptics who weren't convinced NASA was up to the challenge. The main reason for their cynicism? The fact that NASA had already lost, and was continuing to rapidly lose, its employees. The scientists and engineers who had originally sent man to the moon were retiring or being made redundant at a rapid rate. As they walked out of the aeronautical giant's doors, NASA's specialists took with them the skills and expertise necessary to make further space exploration possible.

Regardless of their role within an organisation, an employee accumulates a career worth of knowledge: knowledge about the industry, their role, the company, its products, employees, and customers. While most of us can breathe a sigh of relief that our job doesn't entail launching billion dollar rockets into orbit, irrespective of the industry we work in we are all faced with the same problem - how to minimise the loss of critical, valuable experience and information when an employee leaves the company.

Global issue

While the challenge of capturing and transferring knowledge before an employee leaves an organisation is not new to the knowledge manager's agenda, this issue is receiving increasing attention. Knowledge managers, Human Resources departments, senior management, governments, and the media are urgently focusing on this global concern. The reason? With the ageing of the 'baby boomer' generation, the number of people expected to retire over the coming years is significantly high. That means a mass exodus from the workforce and with it potentially crippling losses of knowledge.

In February 2006, 36% of the Australian labour force was over the age of 45 compared to 25% in February 1981¹. In some industries, over 50% of the workforce is already over the age of 45¹. By 2021, it is estimated that more than 20% of the Australian population will be over the age of 65². In the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, America's 77 million baby boomers comprise a quarter of the country's population, and their retirement will significantly slow labour force growth³. In the 10 years to 2016, the number of workers in the US aged 55 and over is expected to increase by 46.7%⁴. In 2006 in the United Kingdom, 16% of the population was over the age of 65⁵. By 2030 it is anticipated that 19 million people will be older than 60 years of age in the UK⁶. The percentage of the European Union population aged over 65 years is expected to increase to 22.4% by 2025 from 15.4% in 1995⁶. And the statistics for other countries are similar. There is no denying that globally our workforce is growing older.

Given that companies are increasingly gaining competitive advantages from intellectual assets rather than physical assets, trouble lies ahead for any organisation that does not implement effective knowledge capture strategies. Quantifying the cost of losing knowledge is extremely difficult, and as David DeLong, research fellow at the MIT AgeLab and author of "Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Ageing Workforce", has said, 'Lost knowledge is an invisible problem, so companies don't always see the threat.'.However, many companies are acutely aware of how easy it is to lose knowledge; NASA needing to bring former employees out of retirement is just one example. In its 2002/2003 knowledge management survey of the top 500 organisations in Europe, KPMG found that while 80% of organisations recognise knowledge as a strategic asset, 78% of companies believe business opportunities are being missed due to failure to successfully exploit available knowledge7. Furthermore, 'an average of 6% revenue as a percentage of total turnover or budget annually is being missed from failing to exploit knowledge effectively'7.

Leaning on the Bar

When an employee leaves an organisation, a career's worth of information, experience, contacts, relationships, and insight also leaves if no attempts are made to identify, capture and share this knowledge within the company. With my interest in this topic already roused, and with the increasingly urgent issue of an ageing population, I set out to discover how to say goodbye to a leaving employee satisfied that their critical knowledge has been successfully retained and transferred. My first thought was to turn to my social network. Surely one of my friends worked for an organisation that effectively implemented knowledge retention and transfer strategies? Unfortunately not; no formal knowledge capture approach in a hospitality organisation, a construction firm, mining company, beverage and confectionery giant, aerospace organisation, or City Council. With the exceptions of exit interviews and time for new employees to work alongside leaving employees, only one of my friends worked for an organisation that had a formal knowledge capture and transfer strategy in place: succession planning. A close friend of mine who had taken early maternity leave had actually been re-hired on a contract basis because no one within the organisation had the knowledge required to perform her role.

So, with no luck on the network front, I decided to contact fellow FreePinters for help. Having been an avid FreePinter since my days as Head of Research for a leading outplacement firm in London, I placed a call for help and advice at the FreePint Bar. My SOS was answered and some great ideas were posted. For example, using wikis was suggested to encourage employees to centralise their job knowledge. Job reviews and shadowing were recommended to ensure both the 'obvious' and 'hidden' elements of a position are documented. The importance of documenting procedures was also highlighted.

The FreePint community recognised however the challenges associated with securing a leaving employee's know-how, and pointed out that procedure manuals have limited value. One posting emphasised that the knowledge capture and transfer strategies an organisation implements is determined by that company's environment and resources. With no two employees or organisations the same, it became clear that there may not be a magic answer. Was one FreePinter right in saying that the true 'art' of a position may never really be captured?

A magic answer…?

Working for an organisation that already had an impressive central information and procedure repository, my real challenge was to find a way, particularly at a senior level, to transfer tacit knowledge. High level information about the company, how and why certain decisions were made, project experience, and relationship and network knowledge is difficult to articulate and capture as it is entrenched in an employee's experience. However, my exploration into this subject shows that there are quite a few strategies to attempt to achieve this:

• Mentoring - Allocate the leaving employee to assist in guiding and developing less experienced employees
  
  
• Coaching - Assign the departing employee to monitor the performance of less experienced employees, providing feedback, direction, support and instruction
  
  
• Shadowing - Allow less experienced staff to observe the leaving employee perform their role
  
  
• Joint decision making - Assign a less experienced member of staff and the leaving employee to work together on a task or project
  
  
• Interviews - Have subject matter experts or less experienced employees record interviews with the departing individual about key or challenging projects
  
  
• Storytelling - Allow the departing employee to share their particular areas of experience through stories rather than just providing general observations
  
  
• Networking - Allow less experienced individuals to meet and liaise with the leaving employee's contacts
  
  
• Blogging - Provide the departing employee with the opportunity to write an online journal
  
  
• Think tanks - Ensure the leaving employee is included in relevant research and idea generation groups
  
  
• Communities of practice - Create, or ensure the departing employee is included in existing forums to exchange ideas with other employees who share common organisational interests or goals
  
  
• Contracting/consulting - Recruit departed or retired employees as contractors or consultants
  
  
• Procedure repository - Ensure all policies, procedures and processes related to the leaving employee's position are documented in a central location or system and kept up to date
  
  
• Expert database - Ensure the departing employee's background, skills, strengths and contacts are saved in a searchable database
  
  
• Social network analysis - Map the relationships between the leaving individual and other employees, departments, and organisations
  
  
• Document management systems - Ensure the leaving employee's documents are stored and retrievable in an effective system
  
  
• Succession planning - Ensure processes are implemented for the replacement of key people.
  
  

If you are reading this article though for a magic answer or 'one-size-fits-all' solution, my apologies, there isn't one. The strategies implemented by an organisation depend on that company's culture, available resources and the critical knowledge held by the leaving employee. However, there are several key elements to a successful knowledge transfer and retention approach that are continually highlighted in documents on this topic. First, an organisation needs to identify what knowledge within the business is critical. As not all information is valuable, the challenge lies in identifying the knowledge that is considered an asset. Second, it is crucial to identify who within the company has that critical knowledge. And finally, an organisation needs to identify the most effective and efficient strategies to capture and share that vital knowledge. Note that I mentioned strategies - not just one, but a variety of techniques are necessary to truly capture an employee's know-how.

You would be right in thinking that acquiring a leaving employee's knowledge requires time, effort and resources. Planning is essential - long tem planning, that is. Knowledge losses cannot be reclaimed by short term strategies (take it from someone who was left with a serious product knowledge gap in her team). And implementing these long term strategies is not without a serious hurdle; a knowledge sharing culture is vital to the success of any knowledge retention or transfer strategy. In their survey, KPMG reported that over 60% of respondents found a lack of knowledge sharing culture was a key difficulty when implementing knowledge management strategies7.

Considering that competitive advantages are increasingly based on know-how, employees may not want to share what they know for fear of losing their upper hand. A shift in thinking from the old 'knowledge is power' paradigm to 'knowledge sharing is power' is critical. Additionally, an organisation needs to promote open communication so employees are comfortable discussing their retirement or leaving plans. Without knowing who is planning to leave and when, a company will struggle in its long term planning to capture critical knowledge.

After considerable research, I'm not sure that all of a leaving employee's tacit knowledge can be captured. However, I believe that every effort should be made to capture as much of a departing employee's critical insight, experience, and information as possible. With increasing attention on our ageing population worldwide, future research and discussions on knowledge capture and transfer strategies will be extremely interesting. However, given the urgency of this issue, it's time to start implementing these strategies now. Will it be challenging? Absolutely. But with the impending baby boomer retirement surge, what organisation can afford to stand by and watch its critical knowledge walk out en masse?

Given my know-how now, what strategies would I have used when my go-to guy left my team a few years ago? Without a doubt, shadowing, storytelling, and succession planning would have equipped my remaining team members with a substantial amount of my leaving employee's knowledge. Thankfully, in the last 6 months I haven't had an employee leave my team. But that can change at any moment. And given that collectively I have a team with over 50 years experience, I believe I have some planning to do. How prepared is your organisation? What if today is your last day with your employer? What know-how would you take with you that your company could not afford to lose? And what would be the best way to capture and share your knowledge before you left?

References

1. Australian Jobs 2006. Australian Government, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations http://digbig.com/4wgfb.

2. Encel, S. (2003). Age can work: The case for older Australians staying in the workforce. A report to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Business Council of Australia http://www.plus40.com.au/uploaded/AgeCanWork.pdf.

3. Su, B. W. (2007). The U.S. economy to 2016: Slower growth as boomers begin to retire. Monthly Labor Review.

4. Toossi, M. (2007). Labor force projections to 2016: More workers in their golden years. Monthly Labor Review.

5. Office for National statistics, 22 August 2007, Ageing http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=949

6. Srikanth, R., Benton, J., & Herrera, Y. (2005). Achieving high performance in a rapidly aging world. Accenture.

7. Insights from KPMG's European knowledge management survey 2002/2003. KPMG.

About the author:

With roles including Head of Research and Business Knowledge Specialist, Rebecca has extensive international experience across a range of industries including outplacement and career management, telecommunications, and finance. Rebecca is currently working for Griffith University in Queensland, Australia and is also undertaking her second degree, a Bachelor of Psychology, with a particular interest in organisational psychology. Rebecca can be contacted by email on r.sanders@griffith.edu.au .

Related links:

• Practice What You Preach: Building and Gaining Credibility with Clients: http://web.fumsi.com/go/am/2609
  
  
• Charting a New Course: The Future of Information Work: http://web.fumsi.com/go/am/2509
  
  
• Stay Ahead of the Pack: Specialists from Small Firms Work with Restricted Resources: http://web.fumsi.com/go/af/2547
  
  

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