Let Me Pick Your Brain . . . Tried and True Workplace Development Methods Are a Valuable Resource
By Susan Lill, SPHR

Perhaps you've heard or seen the phrase "the graying of America." With 11,000 Baby Boomers turning age 55 every day in this country, many employers are facing a "brain drain."

This past summer, many boomers hit early retirement age for the first time. By 2011, the first group of baby boomers will reach normal retirement age. Due to the sheer size of this pending exodus, employers should be planning for how they intend to capture, document and transfer all of that know-how and intellectual capability.

Training is definitely part of the plan to ensure successors learn how to replace those leaving. The problem with solely relying on training, however, is that the information still resides in human heads rather than in a company system that can be managed and updated as new information becomes available.

Undocumented knowledge can lead to organizational forgetting resulting in duplication, re-learning and wasted time and effort. Job descriptions and work procedures contain basic instructions for performing a job or function. In my experience, there is a vast amount of unique knowledge not found in those systems.

For example, who do you call when a special tool needs to be calibrated? What do those notes on that 1982 blueprint mean? What are the unusual "work-arounds" when a machine jams? What were the lessons learned on that major expansion project?

Employees learn ways to do certain tasks better/faster/cheaper and those augmentations aren't always written down; however, that kind of information can be important to the effective operation of a business.

Employees leave organizations all the time due to retirement, illness, layoff, resignation or termination. Those departures cannot always be anticipated. Operating under the assumption that departures are always possible helps create the proper mindset to undertake a knowledge capture initiative.

Some firms believe their employees' knowledge is a key success factor leading to strong performance or differentiation. Once captured, information can be shared or transferred to identified stakeholders inside and outside of an organization. Fortune 500 companies lose at least $31.5 billion a year by failing to capture and share knowledge, according to International Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass.-based market intelligence and advisory firm.

Knowledge capture is a process involving a hybrid of people and technology. A typical end-result could be a database filled with lessons learned, how-to's, resources, scanned documents, timelines and other aspects of organizational life. Well-utilized knowledge management systems can help update work processes or procedures, feed e-learning tools, new employee on-boarding, training and succession planning efforts.

Let me briefly illustrate how a knowledge capture process works. AERIE Engineering, an award-winning engineering consulting firm located in Greenville, SC, has pioneered a knowledge capture process for its clients. According to AERIE, the basic steps to the process are:

• AERIE conducts a meeting with department heads to understand what critical data needs to be captured.
  
• AERIE then creates a project plan including a list of resources and contact information for the "target" or "source" of the knowledge to be captured.
  
• Using a structured questionnaire, intensive interviews and job observation meetings occur where responses and observations are captured and documented. The "source" verifies the information. AERIE also verifies the information by conducting virtual or physical "walk-throughs."
  
• The information is edited, packaged, pruned and loaded into a customized database or a searchable Help File to a permit shared access and queries.
  
• A reports package along with a summary of the process is provided to the manager, along with training and instruction about how the information can be retrieved and periodically updated.

IT Help Desks and corporate project managers have been using knowledge-based data systems for years. Identifying "fixes" or solutions from prior efforts or sharing lessons learned across a dispersed project team have improved communication, productivity and service to internal customers. Taking this general approach and applying it to technical professionals, maintenance technicians, machine operators and others can have the same effect. Relaying information from a technology platform can also de-personalize it and perhaps even guard against potential bias. Rather than training others how you do "it," learning how it has been done by several key people over time is broader and not tied specifically to "who." The focus then is on the "how" and the "what" of the work.

In addition to capturing knowledge, training and mentoring can transfer knowledge prior to departures. There are pitfalls in relying solely on those methods however.

What if the departure is not anticipated? What if a departing employee is not motivated or available to train his/her replacement? What if underlying emotions or issues affect who says what and to whom? Human beings can create variability in any knowledge transfer effort.

Mature workers mentoring newer employees can help teach some of these "work-arounds" assuming the older worker is willing to surrender what they know. Let's face it--not everyone is an effective mentor or trainer. Subject matter experts often are not versed in instructional design or adult learning theory--the method of teaching others may be haphazard versus systematic. Training often focuses on the transfer of skills instead of "learnings," discoveries or undocumented "work-arounds."

I remember a time when our manufacturing facility experienced an episode of downtime with a new piece of equipment. The maintenance manager was hospitalized and was the only person who knew who to call, what the quick fixes were and where preventative maintenance records were kept. His absence resulted in additional downtime, scrambling around trying to find the information and needless to say, high levels of stress and frustration. In hindsight, a shared database including that information would have been useful to those involved.

Creating institutional memory can be a very important part of a business continuity or disaster recovery plan. Ignoring the capture of acquired knowledge can even lead to potential fiascoes. Ignorance is not a defense. Know it now or lose it forever. Keep the capabilities of your people on hand to enhance your organization's capability and benefit the next generation of your workforce.

Susan A. Lill is a certified human resources professional. She is the 2004 GSHRM HR Professional of the Year and was awarded the 2005 Athena Award from the Greenville Chamber of Commerce. She is the president of Align HR, a Greenville-based firm providing HR services such as employee surveys, customized training, diversity initiatives and organizational improvement. See more at www.AlignHR.com.