Team Building Tips

Have you taken the steps to manage the knowledge of older workers?

You should be documenting that knowledge and creating mentoring / shadowing programs so your younger workers can learn before the more senior members leave.

What steps are you taking?

I'd love to know what you have in mind and what steps you find useful. I've found organizations tend to hold their $$$ too tight and don't want to let go of a few extra dollars to retain knowledge of potential ex employees. They would rather avoid the appearance of spending money and yet lose more money in retraining younger employees after some serious brain drain.

I don't think documentation is enough. Mentoring or shadowing is key. In one case we were going to record instructional videos before a senior member left however in the end that never happened and it was decided we'd be flexible and work with the style of our replacement as he was instead of trying to fit the new comer into our senior members role.

It's important to have a knowledge management strategy and program to make sure you are retaining the right knowledge in your company. It doesn't have to cost a ton of money. There is a lot of open source software you could use to help you out and you can implement strategies, like mentoring and coaching, to transfer knowledge on a one-to-one basis. You need to decide:

- What knowledge is at risk?
- What knowledge needs to be shared?
- Who has the knowledge?
- How will it be shared?

Put a team together and ask them what would work best? Tap into the "ego" of the older workers. People love to share their expertise. Make sure you create a safe environment for that to happen.

Hello,

success of a team depends on its member, it is a task of leader to get the best from each and every individual not only from the current team member, but from old and left out members too

Regards,
sarah_9