Baby Boomer Bust = Lost Knowledge or Does It?

As the baby boomer generation approaches retirement, organisations are recognising an impending knowledge crisis. Much of the critical expertise of our most experienced workers will soon be leaving. And replacing it will be difficult if not impossible.

Many companies believe their productivity and future success will be seriously impacted and have begun programs aimed at preserving the knowledge of their retiring knowledge workers (RKW).

At first blush conventional wisdom might state that: “It is important to gather the knowledge of everyone approaching retirement age.” And most RKW programs take a very inclusive approach to gathering RKW knowledge. They try to gather the knowledge of every person even remotely close to retirement, just in case.

Dr. William Seidman and Michael McCauley, who have study the best practices in this area would recommend: “Gather only the knowledge of your critical, high-performing knowledge workers – harvest the ‘best of the best." When you step back and look at an all inclusive approach you probably experience brain numbness at the complexity and confusion that it would produce and in the end it is unlikely to produce any real value to the organisation.

Seidman and McCauley suggest that to effectively address this issue that the key is ensuring against the loss of critical knowledge is to conceptualise the problem as one of knowledge value rather than age.

To be effective, you need to harvest the knowledge of your top performing workers, regardless of age. While there may be some correlation between quality of performance and being close to retirement, the relationship is not absolute and shouldn’t be the foundation of any RKW program.

To effectively ensure against the loss of critical knowledge is a two step process:

• Determine the critical processes in the organisation that most require protection.
• Identify the top performers in those processes whose knowledge most needs protection – again regardless of how close they are to retirement.

Critical processes in an organisation are easily determined by asking top managers a few simple questions:

• What are the two or three most critical or core processes in the organisation?
• What does the organisation spend the majority of its time, attention, and resources doing?
• What process would have the most negative impact on the organisation if it were to fail?

It is rare for organisations, according to Seidman and McCauley to identify more than a few critical processes.  For example, the field operations of a fast food chain narrowed the focus to just four core processes: managing the service area, managing the restaurant, providing excellent speed of service, and managing food costs. Or a manufacturing group at a semiconductor company found it focused the majority of its time on only two key processes: defect management and maximising machine “up time.”

Once you have defined an area of focus, you will want to preserve only the best RKW knowledge, which is the knowledge that most enables our business to excel in the selected area. So after you have answered the questions stated earlier, the next one to answer is “Do some RKWs consistently and systematically outperform others in managing this critical process?” Don’t get caught up in a sense of fairness or equality. Let’s face it, the value of top performing RKW knowledge is vastly more important to the organisation than the knowledge of employees seen as less effective than top performers.

Who are these top performers? All you have to do is ask the management team, “If you were starting you own company around ‘XYZ process’ who would you pick to be on the team?” They will immediately name the individuals that they most respect for being consistently successful in the critical area.

The approach described in this article is very efficient – it rarely requires more than 30 minutes to identify both the core processes of an organisation and the top performers of those key processes.  To effectively manage the RKW problem, all you need is to preserve the knowledge of a few RKWs in a few key areas. Even in a large organisation (or a highly dysfunctional one), this rarely requires a huge initiative.

Adapted from GL Now