Workforce Transitions and Knowledge Management

Workforce transitions are a way of doing business in our current environment. As companies relocate, reorganize, restructure, revise business models and review and change current employee numbers and responsibilities, they forget about the hidden impact of loss of knowledge.

I recently was the guest lecturer at a Knowledge Management class taught by Mani Subramani for Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. The students had studied the issues of managing knowledge during this time of business transition. I gave them a view as to what it's really like on the ground as you are applying the theory to real life situations. And I was struck again by how important the nuances can be, as well as cultural issues such as trust.

I am contacted almost every week by a company going through a transition. Sometimes the transition is the retirement of workers and the need to transfer knowledge to a younger and smaller workforce. Always the issue seems overwhelming to the companies involved.

Yes, identifing and transferring knowledge is a big undertaking, but it need not be overwhelming. Part of the issue is that somehow we think of managing knowledge as separate from business processes. Yet, is that logical? The knowledge we need to manage and transfer IS business knowledge. Transferring knowledge in context is the most successful and easiest way to do so. Adult learning theory bears that out. But we want to make this work separate from our day to day operations. That is our first mistake.

Trying to do too much at once is often the second mistake. We can not take on the entire enterprise. We can do well in the transfer of knowledge in one area and apply the learning to build momentum and create success in another area of the organization.

There are many ways to make the identification and transfer of knowledge across boundaries (generational, geographic, cultural, etc) workable-- and to help our businesses not only survive but thrive. A well crafted plan, leveraging opportunities as they arise, knowledge of how organizations and people change, TRUST, and good old fashioned common sense are the key points to remember. We'll take on the basic steps in the next blog.