SuperManager: Knowledge Transfer - Best Practices when you're Losing an Expert

When a key part of your team leaves, there is a responsibility for the manager to make sure every one has a smooth transition. Listen in on this discussion as our panelists find solutions to these problems as they talk about what the impact has when someone leaves.


Samantha C Naes - CN Video Production (corporate video production)
Sally Bowles - Prefix Technologies (IT Solutions)
Joel Emery - Ignite Strategies (Sales Processes)
Victoria Wors - Wors Consulting (HR Services)

Chapters

• 2:08 Can Employees Afford to Stay?
• 4:36 Are People Willing to Share?
• 10:15 Technical Skills vs. Soft Skills
• 13:36 Who is Responsible?
• 17:38 Sally's Horror Story

Transcript

Christine: 0:02

You're listening to super manager, the podcast for people who manage people and business with ideas, trends and expert interviews to help you be a super manager.

Sam: 0:14

I used to work for a larger organization as an IT manager. And one of the responsibilities I had to do every year was what was called the risk assessment matrix and that's where a manager has to go through every possible risk to their department. Anything that could go wrong, anything that could happen and then they had to rate the likelihood of it happening and the severity of damage if it does happen, and then we had to come up with a, how do we keep this from happening, plan and a disaster recovery plan if it does happen and we had to do this every year. One of the things on the list that there never really seem to be a great answer for was losing a key employee because the likelihood of it happening. Yeah, it could happen and the severity, it actually could be somewhat severe depending on how much responsibility they have. But when you talked about obviously preventative, there are ways you can try to prevent someone from leaving, but if it does happen, there was never really a great answer for that and managers would always kind of fill in the blanks with, Oh, we do regular lunch and learns, we document processes, but we put that down because it looks good on paper when it really boils down to it and then employee leaves those lunch and learns that they did or that documentation that they put together often makes very little difference in keeping things from going wrong. So today we're actually going to be talking about knowledge transfer best practices when you're losing an expert. And I have my team of experts with me,

Vicki: 1:40

Vicki Wors, Wors consulting, human resources expert.

Sally: 1:44

Sally Bowls, PreFix Technologies IT for small and medium sized business.

Joel: 1:48

Joel Emery, Ignite Strategies, sales systems architect.

Sam: 1:53

And Samantha Naes CN video corporate video production. When my dad took his job, he took a job out of college and he retired from that same job when I started my career, five years maybe. Now, maybe even less than that. Does that mean that people can't become experts in what they do in that short amount of time? If they do become an expert, what does an organization do when that person is getting ready to leave?

Vicki: 2:19

Part of the issue, especially with the younger generation, is they cannot afford to stay with a company that is not continually giving them extra training and development. If they stay with the company for more than three years, they're going to lose out on that expertise. They're going to lose out on their marketability. It's kind of the inverse of what we've seen from our parents and even our early careers that you can't stay.

Sam: 2:51

Vic, you should've been here for our last conversation. We were talking about continuing education and that's exactly what we were talking about. It's sometimes for someone to leave just to continue training.

Sally: 3:02

I think the biggest issue with transfer of knowledge is it takes both sides to be mature and open enough to share that and realizing if you're not sharing all of your knowledge, it could effect your customers. It could affect your reputation and it's going to slow down the entire office once that person leaves, but you're trying to fill it up. So exit interviews are important but they're really important that both sides are honest.

Vicki: 3:32

But one of the things, there are some people who've learned, if they share their knowledge, they can be easily replaced.

Sam: 3:39

I would have thought that would've been a problem. And I've actually found in working with employees to capture key employees knowledge or knowledge about key systems, my concern was that people weren't going to want to share. What I found was typically experts do want to share. They do want other people to understand their job because they're in a situation where they can't go on vacation without having their cell phone on because they're the only one that knows how to deal with it. And when I do run into people that are reluctant to share, you kind of initially think that they want to hoard it to themselves. What I have found to be the case, most of the time when you really dig in and you make them share, you get management involved. And they have to share. It's more embarrassment that they have processes in place that are a little bit more manual than they've led other people to believe or a little bit less elegant and they didn't want other people to know how they were doing what they were doing, not because they didn't want to share but because they were afraid. Maybe it wasn't ideal.

Sally: 4:35

That's a good point.

Joel: 4:36

Sam in your work on this. Do you see the corporate culture playing a role in how willing people are to share their information? I could imagine an environment which it's highly competitive in which people would be more reluctant to share their knowledge versus one that's very collaborative team-based organization.

Sam: 4:52

Yeah. I mean obviously I haven't been called into work with a lot of companies where it's competitive and people are reluctant to share. It's more where it's a necessity, especially like for example in it departments where somebody will come in and write a custom piece of code and then once they leave nobody knows how to support that piece of code and somebody has got to learn. I was in a situation with one organization where they had somebody who was retiring who was an expert on a certain system and he was going through the process of offloading his knowledge onto another employee who was going to kind of step up and take his place. After he left, they had become in and kind of go through the process with them and captured on video and it's a good thing because it was a six month process and his last week before he retired I contacted him and said, we've got one module left to capture, and he said, well, we're going to have to do it a little bit differently because the person who I've been working with, she just got promoted to another department so she's actually not going to be stepping up and taking my place. That was an interesting situation where they chose to offload knowledge transfer from one expert to one employee and then gave that employee a promotion shooting themselves in the foot.

Vicki: 6:00

So that gets back to the old fashioned organizational development. When a company has not identified who has the responsibility in the organization and identified it by position, not by person. If somebody is getting ready to get promoted or they are in a position for promotion, you need to identify that you're going to be loading them up with information that's not going to be available to you in your instance.

Sam: 6:31

I tend to think of proactive approaches a little bit better. They think they're being proactive because this person is retiring in six months. By proactive, I mean regularly, regularly making sure that you're not the only person in the office that knows how to do this, that if there's a process that's important, that you've gotten multiple people that can act as backup. The problem with that is everybody's gotta be an expert at something and not everybody can know everything. You don't want to spread people too thin, but there are a lot of people that do like regular lunch and learns where they'll say, okay, who's the expert at this process or at this system or whatever the job is, and they say, you're going to get up and you're going to share that knowledge and once a week or once a month we're going to do a lunch and learn and we're going to pick a topic and those are typically what people put in that risk assessment matrix. We do lunch and learns because that is probably your best option if you want to be proactive. The problem with it is that A), they oftentimes get canceled. Because the person is too busy because they're the only one that knows how to do this. They don't have time to do it. B) other people don't show up because they don't see the value in it. They don't have the time and the reason they don't show up is because when they do show up, the expert is talking so far over their head because they've been doing it for so long and it comes so easy for them. That the person attending gets lost doesn't want to admit that they don't understand. Mind wanders, they got nothing out of it or they understood it. They walked away and a week later they forgot everything. So they don't really see the benefit of continuing to come to these. That's what makes it kind of a problem.

Sally: 8:06

I think that's why lunch and learn to get frustrating for employees to go to because that is either over their head or six weeks later somebody says, Oh yeah, didn't you go to that lunch and learn? You're like, I don't remember any of that.

Sam: 8:19

Use it or lose it.

Vicki: 8:20

They don't. They don't typically have a Champion. Again is that only speaking earlier, human resources lost their place at the executive table years ago and now it is either through the finance department or some other department where human resources.

Sam: 8:38

Why the finance department?

Vicki: 8:38

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life, but anyway.

Joel: 8:41

I see the same thing in marketing.

Vicki: 8:44

Correct.

Joel: 8:44

The IT departments have taken over marketing functions and a lot of times.

Vicki: 8:48

The issue is is that you have to have a champion of these lunch and learns that has enough stroke within the organization to say, we are not having attendees, or, our instructors are not attending or they can't attend because of the demands on their time or they have an inability to communicate effectively with their audience. They don't know how to train. So what is left is that you really need to have someone that is involved or very much understanding of the adult learning model. Which is you don't lecture. You have to let them experience what you're trying to convey to them. It's more tactile than it is just a lecture.

Sam: 9:40

Tell stories, give examples, participate in understand.

Sally: 9:44

Yeah. I was going to say I think participation as huge.

Sam: 9:48

Actually, I'm surprised I didn't think of this when we started talking about this podcast, but I actually published a, a booklet that can be downloaded online. It's mastering the Brown bag lunch and learn and it's for the person giving the lunch and learn. Being understanding that people don't know what you're talking about and telling stories, making it easy to prepare. It's not a big ordeal for the person who's giving a lunch and learn that can actually be downloaded and when we publish this podcast, we'll include a link on where they can get that.

Sally: 10:14

Yeah, please do.

Joel: 10:15

And the question about knowledge transfer, is this something that's more relevant or more important in highly technical or engineering sort of fields versus say soft skills, whether it's management, leadership, sales things?

Vicki: 10:30

For example, is that there are from a human resources environmental situation, there are past practices that are nowhere in an employee handbook or manual, but it's an assumed approach to various things in the organization. I t could be even in soft skills that people need to understand where are the landmines so to speak. If those landmines need to get dug up well, we need to dig them up. But it can cause a real problem, a discord in the ability to communicate from level to level or among colleagues when someone comes in and they have no respect for what went on before.

Sam: 11:18

Well, and that's a good point. There is a little bit of a difference between soft skills and more technical skills. I almost feel like the technical skills are easier to transfer than the soft skills, but what does happen when your key sales person or somebody who really knows how to get through a problem that can be difficult to teach other people? That can be a real loss to the company if somebody doesn't learn how to,

Vicki: 11:41

But that's behavioral that prevalently.

Sally: 11:43

Well, but there are certain soft skill jobs marketing. If you were to leave an organization, you take your creative ideas, but knowledge that could be left behind at a company could be what's going on with certain customers. Why maybe you shouldn't contact them for the next three weeks because their dog just had surgery or their daughter's getting married, whatever, or that type.

Sam: 12:10

As simple as this person prefers to be texted rather than email.

Sally: 12:13

I was just getting ready to say, and they also know that you know what, that person's never at the office until at least nine o'clock don't call them before 10 those are almost more important on the actual technical skills personally is because any time on marketing a salesperson or even some of our operations people, they've already developed a relationship with your customers and that relationship is going to change. So give the company a break and get them at least kind of prepped to take over that role.

Vicki: 12:43

And what people don't like, they don't like change.

Sam: 12:47

It's funny how this conversation goes hand in hand with the one that we just had and if you haven't listened to the one that it was the one on continuing education and who's responsible, and Joel had brought up the point of some people feel that by giving your employees that additional training, you're making them more marketable to other companies to have them poached. But if and when they do leave, companies need to realize that they have gained experience, they have gained knowledge that is specific to your organization, to your systems, to your clients, to what goes on and letting them walk out the door without you keeping that information is an even bigger loss to the company than just losing the employee.

Vicki: 13:26

And turnover is a huge cost. Huge. It's hidden costs.

Sam: 13:30

On both ends. The training and the new person. And loss of the human.

Sally: 13:37

But I think also companies are fooling themselves if they're not prepared for that. There are always going to be certain jobs, no matter what size the company that a person outgrows. The people in the workforce right now are not afraid of change. They're not afraid of bettering themselves, whether it be their salary, their position title. So I think it works hand in hand as if you are gaining this knowledge and training from this company, you owe it to them to leave that behind as you continue on with your career and grow.

Sam: 14:11

And whose responsibility is that, I mean the company should take responsibility for saying.

Sally: 14:14

I think its both.

Sam: 14:15

before you walk out the door, we need to capture that work.

Sally: 14:18

Company needs to make sure they know it's important, but that employee that's leaving, hopefully it's thankful enough that they've had the learning and training that they're not going to withhold valuable information.

Vicki: 14:29

Well that gets back to the probably an earlier podcast talking about the employee's loyalty to the company and we don't have any anymore. A nd why is that? It can be there. People really enjoy being connected. They really enjoy a community. They enjoy that. Being a part of. Companies aren't developing the programs, the involvement within an organization that will bond employees to them so that when they do find a better job, let's bond you for a loyalty to the company.

Sam: 15:10

Still feel a commitment to the team.

Vicki: 15:12

Feel a commitment. They have friends, they have colleagues they've worked with. They don't want to leave them in the lurch, so you need to bond them back so that you say, Hey, and we hate to see you leave. However we understand this is for your family, for you, this is for your growth in the future. Let's work out a situation where we can glean from your knowledge and expertise and wish you well on your way.

Sam: 15:39

One of the things that we recommend in a situation like that is first talk to that employee, have a conversation like that and say, let's talk about some of the things that you do, some of your responsibilities. You also want to notify other people in the department and say, what are some of the things you need this person's help with? Because they may not consider it part of their responsibility or realize that they're needed in that capacity, but other people know what they need that person for and what they're going to miss other than just the comradery. Come up with that list and then you have to prioritize how important is this, how many other people know how to do it, and then find those real key things that they're going to be leaving with that no one else knows how to do. That's very necessary.

Sally: 16:20

I love that you brought up that point because oftentimes a manager in a large organization might not realize that Sally has to always ask the Vicki about how to do something because she was the expert or I've always gone to Joel because I know that he can help me with this, and managers that aren't totally involved may not even be aware. So going to the employees to ask, Hey, what is it this person brings to your team is huge. So I'm really glad you brought that up.

Sam: 16:48

And then one last thing, kind of going back to the lunch and learns a little bit. One of the things that's become really popular right now that we do for a lot of our clients is we can solve a lot of lunch and learn issues by simply capturing it on video. If somebody is giving a lunch and learn a little coaching helps on telling stories and doing a better lunch and learn, but at least capturing it on video so people who feel lost because they don't understand when they go back and look into it, they can then rewatch what they missed out on because they didn't understand what was going on and then people who couldn't attend, people who joined the organization after the lunch and learn after the fact. It's just such an easy thing to do and it's so worthwhile. So that's something that's really recommended to help solve that problem as well. Does anybody have a horror story? I forgot to ask about a horror story for this one.

Sally: 17:38

My horror story was when with working with another IT company A key employee was becoming stressed and so they were encouraged to take some time off, kind of look back de-stress a little bit. T hey drove up to Chicago, put the company cell phone in a padded mailer and mailed it back and just quit. That was the end of it. That was huge.

Sam: 18:04

So there was no opportunity for knowledge transfer or figuring out who this employee was working with or.

Sally: 18:10

No. The company reached out multiple times.

Sam: 18:14

If you're interested in having your lunch and learn captured on video or any other kind of knowledge capture, contact me at sam@cn-video.com or call me at(314) 843-3663 that's 314- VIDEO ME.

Christine: 18:27

Thanks for listening to super manager by CN video production. Visit our website at cn-video.com for additional episodes and lots of super manager resources or give us a call at(314) video met.