Boomers: A Treasure Chest Of Knowledge

A recent article published at SHRM by Jean M. Phillips, Mary Pomerantz and Stanley M. Gully points out the quandary that most companies face with taming the exiting of Baby Boomers from the workforce, and transferring critical knowledge to those who remain behind.

By 2020, 16 percent of the U.S. population will be age 65 and over, up from 12 percent in 1999. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 50 percent of federal employees and 70 percent of federal senior managers will be eligible to retire by 2010.

Yet leaders of many organizations ignore aging workforce issues despite the potential problems they see coming, and some damage seems likely to occur before the issues receive appropriate attention. Several challenges exist for employers:
1. Organizations can expect to have expert knowledge disappear as highly experienced and skilled workers retire.
2. Organizations will find it difficult to maintain head count in key positions requiring experienced, high-quality talent held by many existing Boomers.

Encouraging Knowledge Transfer

When a key employee leaves, expert knowledge leaves as well. This challenge grows even more difficult for companies facing a surge in retirements. It can take years to transfer critical knowledge--developed through years of job performance-- from experienced workers to their replacements.

According to Dorothy Leonard and Walter C. Swap's book Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), it can take up to 10 years to develop the kind of "deep smarts" that these highly experienced workers will take with them. In the meantime, losing critical knowledge can hurt the competitiveness of most businesses.

Expertise vs Leadership and Technical Competencies

Traditional ways of transferring expertise-- including formal training, on-the-job learning, observation, work progressions and structured assignments--are not sufficient for transferring leadership and technical competencies. Instead, this process often requires mentoring and one-on-one interaction.

To address the challenge of transferring leadership and technical competencies, business leaders should focus on identifying the knowledge, skills and relationships essential to senior workers' job performance. This information may include company history, values and work processes as well as relationships with key stakeholders and decision-making criteria.