Of the 2 million small businesses in Australia (and millions more in the US,
UK and other nations) many are facing a critical challenge: How can they best
transition knowledge from Baby Boomer staff and owners to Gen X and Y employees?
‘Has anybody else seen that elephant in the room?’ With many Boomers facing
retirement in the coming years, the retention of knowledge is a growing concern
for business owners right now. Having years of knowledge walk out the door can
cause major interruptions, not to mention the situation where health concerns of
Boomers (or their partners) unexpectedly bring about premature retirement.
Yet, ‘nobody is mentioning the elephant’: when and how are we going to move
that knowledge out of their heads and into the heads of other staff …and ideally
into a system that all staff can use?
Maintaining profitability while knowledge is being passed on and often within
a relatively short time is the challenge. This is being done with mixed results
across all business sectors. In addition, there are also major differences
between generations in terms of their preference or aversion to the use of
technology, which can make the task of knowledge transfer an interesting one.
Systemisation is one important approach to mitigating the risk of knowledge
loss. If you operate a business with a reliance on highly knowledgeable staff,
your business may be vulnerable. While the loss of knowledge can threaten some
staff, with good leadership and communication this knowledge transfer can be
achieved. If you systemise the norm and allow staff to manage the exceptions,
you can show any concerned staff that systems do not make staff redundant which
is often the fear.
Systemised businesses are highly attractive places to work and manage, they
allow staff to have time off, plus the business as an asset is considerably more
valuable.
It is clear the clock is ticking for many businesses to determine a plan,
action it and remove this risk of knowledge loss. If this is something you must
face, what are you going to do about it?
Here are some questions to consider:
- Do stakeholders support this knowledge transfer and have commitment to
complete the task?
- Have you considered which staff to involve? • Do your staff have the
right skills to complete this?
- Is there a need to get external help due to expertise or time
availability?
- Will time be set aside from day to day responsibilities to complete the
task?
- Have you consulted staff on how they think it can be best approached?
- Should knowledge be documented or build it into a system?
- Can an existing system house this knowledge?
- Have you formed a realistic plan for these activities?
- Do you have the end picture in mind?
In future articles, I will take more time to outline the obstacles and offer
some points to help navigate this multi-faceted quandary of systemization and
knowledge transfer.
In the meantime, remember that systems and technology exist to be leveraged
in order to give time back to you and your staff. The aim is to use your systems
to make a profitable business without unduly relying on key personnel.
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