How to ensure knowledge sticks after redundancy
Jimmy the Saint, the central character of the movie Things to do in Denver when you're dead runs a business called Afterlife Advice, whereby the terminally ill can leave messages for their loved ones to be played after their passing.
The corporate world is undergoing something similar at this very moment. People are being made redundant in their thousands. How can you ensure that the knowledge that these people have doesn't leave the company with them?
1. What knowledge do you need?
This generally falls into two categories. What knowledge do you need left behind and what knowledge does the departee feel is crucial to their job. Compare these needs (from you) and offers (from them) to come up with a list of main areas to be transferred.
2. Develop a plan to capture and transfer the knowledge
You know what needs to be captured, now you need to develop a plan for actually capturing it. If it's a job handover situation, with someone replacing the leaver then meetings between the two parties can be a good strategy. If there isn't a successor, or the knowledge is needed by a larger community of people, things like a live web chat can be effective.
3. Do the interview
Remember it's not just know how you want to capture, but also know who, know what and know why.
4. Publish this knowledge 'asset'
If there is a successor then you probably don't need to do too much here, but if the knowledge passes to a wider audience then packaging it is vital. It will need to be accessible and searchable somewhere on your computer network, perhaps in the form of a FAQ, case studies or video presentations.
5. Stay in touch
This part is crucial and underpins the importance of communication throughout the process so that the leaver does so on good terms with the company. It's crucial that you and they remain in touch as there will always be a question you wanted to ask but forgot to at the time.
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Comments
Sounds great but the reality is often different - not many people facing redundancy feel they want to be that helpful - surprise surprise. Of course some will.
This, of course, just shows the importance of capturing all of this on an ongoing basis when everyone is happy rather than trying to do it at difficult times - or being caught out because someone stepped under a bus unexpectedly!
As well as publishing the information it is important to keep it up to date on an ongoing basis so it needs to be re-visited regularly to make it worth something!
Succession planning as standard and, where possible, process mapping should assist to ensure that even when someone leaves the organisation for whatever reason, the knowledge is retained.
BCP's should also capture knowledge retention.
Things to do in Denver is an ace movie. On the point though I think if you're honest about things then people won't mind, but you should be capturing information from people way before redundancy ever becomes an issue.
One inherent problem is that as soon as someone is told that they are to be made redundant - their loyalty just dissolves into nothing, and they often (unless they are very senior) care little about retaining knowledge in the firm, and just want to move on ASAP.