There are things you would just as soon forget about the approach to business of some out-going executives, but for those with good lessons to leave behind, you might be at a loss. Most companies fall short when it comes to knowledge transfer, according to a recent study conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). Here's what its researchers, in conjunction with HR.com, discovered:
• Just 29 percent of responding organizations report they incorporate retirement forecasts into their knowledge transfer practices, and only a third add skills gap analysis into those forecasts. Most companies also admit they do not formally measure the effectiveness of their knowledge transfer practices.
• Less than half say they train their managers to identify critical skills, and less than one in four managers (23 percent) are educated in critical skills transfer.
• Training remains the most conventional way to transfer knowledge in organizations, with 82 percent reporting that training is an ongoing knowledge transfer practice. This is especially true in larger companies (those with 5,000 or more employees), where more than 90 percent employ ongoing training. Another top practice cited was coaching, utilized by 55 percent of all reporting companies, and mentoring programs, which are used on an ongoing basis by 44 percent of organizations.
• There is little consensus about which part of the organization handles the management of knowledge transfer initiatives. Forty-one percent say the initiatives are "managed individually by different business sectors," while 39 percent report the initiatives are handled by corporate, and 20 percent use a combination of corporate and business-sector options to manage knowledge transfer practices.
• Looking to the future, the study found there are up-and-coming practices in use and being considered to address knowledge transfer. Communities of practice are utilized by a third of all responding companies to transfer knowledge, and the use of Webcasts, and services such as "Lunch and Learn" and "SharePoint" are on the rise.
• "For all the public gnashing of teeth about the impending retirement of all those knowledgeable, hard-working Baby Boomers, relatively few organizations are doing much about it," says Jay Jamrog, senior vice president of research at i4cp. "They're going to wind up in a mad, bar-the-doors scramble in the near future if they don't start trying to tap the knowledge of their most knowledgeable Boomers."
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