May 2013 The Strategic Workforce Planner

“As the year 2011

began on Jan. 1, the oldest members of

the Baby Boom generation celebrated their

65th birthday. In fact, on that day, today,

and for every day for the next 19

years, 10,000 Baby Boomers

will reach age 65.”

- Pew Research Center

4 Critical Steps in Knowledge Retention

As America's population ages, so does its workforce. In fact, in the first decade of the new millennium, the number of workers aged 55 to 64 increased by 52%. Unfortunately, most companies are unprepared to manage the loss of many highly skilled, older workers. The situation is even more serious in organizations with a culture of employee retention, higher than average ages, or that still offer traditional pension plans. The challenge is to identify the skills and knowledge of your workforce and put the right plans in place to ensure your organization's future success. Very few companies will take a systematic approach to this problem since the full scope of risk isn’t immediately apparent, but an ad-hoc approach is not sustainable as the turnover in critical positions increases with the age of the workforce. Taking the time to carefully assess your knowledge loss risks can be an important competitive advantage.

1) Identify Identifying and prioritizing the specific knowledge and skills at risk – When you identify the specific knowledge that is about to be lost when highly-experienced employees leave for retirement, you are taking the first step in bridging a potential skills gap. Identifying the deep, tacit knowledge (“know-why” and “know-how” instead of just “know-what”) is the most critical step. This knowledge is the reason you value the employees’ performance and is the risk you face with their departure. This can save production, customers and quality of service. Do you have a senior manager with a unique approach that needs to be documented? Is a high percentage of your experienced employees on the cusp of retiring?

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Quick Hits - Great article about managing talent

34% of employees said their company lacked a talent management program of any kind.

Upcoming Conferences HCI - 2013 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference SHRM - http://annual.shrm.org/ PIHRA - http://cahrconference.org/

Stay Tuned for Upcoming Topics Including: • Skills analysis and transfer • 5 things to consider with your aging workforce • Succession planning

2) Capture Capturing processes, responsibilities and tasks of subject matter experts – Capturing this information is critical to transferring experience and tribal knowledge that is crucial to the successful of your business. Documenting the responsibilities and tasks will give you a playbook on how to upskill incumbent workers and train new employees. This process may uncover best practices and successes that have yet to be communicated through your organization. 3) Communicate Analyzing and communicating areas of risk and skill gaps within the organization – Take the information from the above items and develop a way to communicate it throughout your organization. There are methods for creating a dashboard of critical information on projected retirements and knowledge loss by location and job role. There needs to be a buy-in factor with upper level management for the jobs that are in jeopardy of being lost. This creates accountability and responsibility. 4) Connect Developing concrete, actionable responses to mitigate knowledge loss and connect people, tools and resources – This will be a road map on how to be successful in your organization. This might include skill assessments, job analysis and training plans. Utilize on-the-job training or your local community college and work together to upskill your present employees and/or hire qualified applicants. Job shadowing, mentoring, and rehire after retirement programs may also be a part of these solutions.

In this information age, people's knowledge, skills and their relationship capabilities have become critical assets for organizations. In this context, it has become vital for every organization to attract and retain the best available talent. - IUPUI, July, 2008

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Brian Lester EDSI Consulting - Senior Consultant