Human Resources
Knowledge TransferOne of the most potentially disturbing aspects of losing staff to retirement and other voluntary separations is that they take what they know about their jobs with them. Unless the organization has taken deliberate steps in advance to identify and capture this information for its own institutional memory, gaps in understanding may develop that could potentially negatively impact operations. Knowledge Transfer is the generic term for a collection of methods and strategies by which this information is captured. Fortunately, not all knowledge is equal. You don’t need to capture it from everyone, nor do you need to capture everything from any one individual. Plus, at times, the departure of a knowledge worker may serve as an opportunity for the agency to replace the departing employee’s knowledge base with new knowledge. This is an emerging human resource management strategy and therefore not as many resources are available about it, although more information can be found under the broader topic of “Knowledge Management.” The following resources may be helpful to you in identifying what information is necessary to retain and how to capture it: Knowledge Transfer Resources – articles and publications about Knowledge Transfer |