Pink Elephant Blog
Don’t Let Institutional Knowledge Drain Become a Nightmare
In the spirit of Halloween, I want to tell you a very scary story. It’s the story of the institutional knowledge drain. Be afraid, be very afraid…
Beware the departing employee
Recently, I was working with a client who is responsible for developing and testing data recovery plans, as well as regularly performing business impact analyses (BIAs). During one of our conversations, he mentioned he’s retiring at the end of the year and gave the company more than six months’ notice because no one else within IT knows how to do his job. Simply stated, he is a single point of failure. The organization needs all those six months to identify an existing employee or hire someone new, and then sufficiently train them before this person retires. He’s a nice guy and knew his retirement would create a knowledge gap.
The cost is frightfully high
Thinking about this instance and the many other clients I’ve worked with over the years, I realize that a lot of organizations are suffering knowledge loss due to an aging workforce that is nearing retirement. What I find surprising is that few organizations have a plan for how to survive this knowledge gap. They’re losing knowledge and have minimal means to recoup it before it might be too late. Though the organizations will most likely survive, they do so at a great expense; often rehiring recent retirees as consultants at exorbitant rates or having to pay other staff to discover/rediscover or learn/relearn the knowledge.
Don’t get taken by surprise
To be clear, I’m not talking about technical skills alone, new and younger staff often bring excellent sets of technical skills to the job. I’m talking about:
- Organizational and institutional knowledge
- Crucial information about the business and how IT works within the organization
- How the job is done
- The practices and processes
- The organizational culture and how to work within it
- Specific organizational uses for the technology – integrations, effective troubleshooting, and problem investigation skills honed within the organization’s specific environment
- Knowledge of legacy systems
- Knowledge of relationships and the key people to work with
It often appears that these organizations are taken by surprise when smart people, full of their organization’s institutional knowledge, retire or – more often – resign for another position. But this should be expected; it should never be a surprise. It may even look like these organizations are in denial but, most likely, they’re just suffering from a lack of preparation. It’s quite possible they see this transfer of knowledge as an expense, rather than an investment in the organization’s future. Many organizations have put a mentoring program in place or rely on the natural passing on of knowledge from older and more experienced staff to the younger staff through on-the-job training. But let’s face it, we’re human. If we’re expected to pass on our knowledge without anything else to look forward to – something more rewarding – we can become very protective of our knowledge. It is not uncommon for us to view our knowledge as personal wealth and job security.
Be a Hallowinner in the employee game – Focus on business continuity planning
I rarely witness, anymore at least, active and intentional cross-training, whether it’s between two people or different departments. This involves scheduling time, and this time and effort is often eroded by other more pressing work. I can’t tell you how many times I teach certification courses that are mandatory for the participants, but these participants are often pulled from class to deal with pressing issues and critical meetings. Even though we talk a lot about it, I think it’s safe to say that we – the IT industry – do not put a priority on formal or structured training or real knowledge sharing.
A BIA is the activity of assessing the impacts on the business from the potential loss – of data, a system, or critical IT assets – for periods of time. Based on the results of this analysis, along with a risk assessment to determine the probability and likelihood of that loss occurring, you can develop appropriate business continuity plans. This plan should also account for the loss of institutional knowledge resulting from employees leaving the organization. Consider this:
- The impact of the loss of institutional knowledge through attrition and retirement can be as impactful, over time, as the loss of data and IT assets that organizations generally protect against and plan for
- Where the recovery of data and systems may take hours, possibly days, the recovery of institutional knowledge may take months, or possibly even years
Retaining institutional knowledge is not difficult, but it is time consuming and never-ending. People may not easily give up knowledge if it’s perceived as personal wealth. But this is an absolute necessity. For organizations with a workforce of talented individuals who are nearing retirement, there needs to be some urgency.
The first step to take for a business continuity plan is to assess the level and type of institutional knowledge that people within your organization possess as well as how much of the knowledge will be lost if and when those individuals leave your organization through retirement or other reasons. While this will not be easy to ascertain, it is critical. Start by asking all experienced employees in your IT organization one simple question: If they left the organization today, who has the institutional knowledge to do their job tomorrow, at the same level at which they currently perform the job today?
I believe this situation requires an institutional knowledge training program. Many organizations have mentoring programs, but I’m always a bit skeptical of their success. I’m not saying that a mentoring program isn’t useful; what I’m really talking about is what used to be called apprenticeships. This type of program is something that many trades still rely on. This requires intentional training, knowledge-sharing, and hands-on use of the knowledge, as well as enough time allocated to provide prioritized, measurable results and incentives.
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