Encouraging the Transfer of Knowledge within Your Workplace

Many of us have read about the intergenerational changes going on right now in the business world — as the trend of baby boomer retirement continues, an older generation of workers is passing the baton to a younger generation, including the millennials who have just recently entered the workforce.

What does this mean to businesses?

It means that companies that facilitate smooth transitions and the transfer of knowledge will have a major competitive advantage over those that don’t.

How do you make sure that you’re preserving the knowledge and experience of retiring individuals who have added so much to your company?

 

Mentoring Programs

One great step forward is to institute concrete mentoring programs that provide the vehicle for older workers to impart knowledge to those younger than themselves. A mentoring program is perfect, because it’s often done on a ‘one on one’ basis. There’s only so much that people will take in from group sessions. Where a lot of what’s heard in a lecture may go by the wayside, building one-on-one personal relationships allows a much smoother flow of knowledge and information that’s going to provide value to the company later on.

Evaluate Younger Workers for Results

In a lot of ways, programs for this kind of knowledge transmission may not be effective unless companies are checking up and making sure that this kind of transfer is happening. The way to do this is to evaluate what young career professionals are learning on the job.

There are many ways to do this, but the kind of evaluation we’re talking about has to be subtle. Companies can send out surveys, e-mails or other prompts to get information from these younger workers about, in general, what they’ve learned during a given time frame, for example, within a year at the company. While this might be seen as busy work or homework, if it’s addressed correctly, recipients will understand it as a core part of business enhancement, and work with human resources departments to keep companies in good shape.

Tying Programs to Incentives

As with much else in the work world, this type of intergenerational learning works best when tied to incentives. Offer more opportunity for advancement to those who actively pick up core knowledge about the industry, and you’re likely to see employees take more initiative. And in some ways, this type of incentives make sense — in addition to hiring the right people, you’re grooming the right people for higher positions within the company later.  It’s like the old principle that “you get what you put into an experience,” and the initiative and hard work that people do up front pays off in the end.

For more about hiring and management in the workplace, keep an eye on the Full Steam Staffing blog detailing a lot of what’s happening in the local Ontario, California job world.