Welcome Tampa Tribune readers, Lost Knowledge
I am quoted in Lost Knowledge by Dave Simanoff in The Tampa Tribune:
It's a sure bet your company will be setting up lots of banners and signs over the next few years.
Will they say 'best wishes on your retirement' - or 'going out of business'?
Experts say employers aren't doing enough to prepare for an impending wave of baby-boom retirements.
I'm the expert. Cool. Along with my longstanding interest, I have to give props to my student, Richard Tinimbang, for doing an excellent set of research on lost knowledge and mentoring.
If you are looking for more information on the topic, I've been thinking and writing about it for a few years. Try these:
- The impact of lost knowledge
- Knowledge managing the retirement brain drain
- Knowledge and Talent in a People-Ready Business (referencing some work at Microsoft on the topic)
You will also want to check out other experts in the field and read up on the topic, if you are interested in a further dive. I give you just two, but it really depends on the direction you wish to follow with your interest in "lost knowledge" as specific solutions are quite varied:
- David W. DeLong's Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce (and the accompanying website)
- Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap's Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Business Wisdom, which is more about mentoring, but fits here.
2 Comment(s)
said:
Charlie - I think what you are asking is similar to the angle I covered with the reporter on this article. Sure, there are a lot of people retiring soon, which represents lots of talent and manpower. Not only that, they are taking with them a long history in their companies and industries which cannot be replicated by filling the position with junior employees.
What I struggle with is finding good statistics that talk about the productivity impact. We've all seen the sheer numbers of people to be retiring, but I'd like to see the next level of analysis that estimates productivity of these current employees and of their "replacements."
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KJolt Memberships
I've asked a question for a while related to this topic. Does anyone expect the replacement workers to be less productive than the baby boomers? The baby boomers (in many cases) built the industries they are retiring from. They have built in knowledge they can use to quickly make decisions. Unless organizations invest in knowledge capture and knowledge management productivity will go down.
Another issue is that many of the jobs are "in the field" and the traditional knowledge access tools will be insufficient. These new workers will need to get the right information at the right time, in the right place...
On the other hand the new workers will have new ideas and those should be captured in the field as well. so that others can take advantage of their new perspective.