U.S. Companies Fail to Capture, Transfer Critical Workforce Knowledge and Skills

According to a survey of more than 500 full-time U.S. workers between 40 and 50 years of age conducted by Accenture, 45% of those employees said that their employers do not have formal workforce planning processes and/or tools in place to capture their workplace knowledge. In addition, 26% percent reported that their organizations will let them retire without any transfer of knowledge. However, 34% reported that their companies hire retired employees as contractors so those former employees can transfer their knowledge and skills to their replacements. Kathy Battistoni, a partner in Accenture’s Human Performance practice, said “Companies should take three critical steps to meet the challenge of transferring knowledge from retiring employees.”

First, they must understand the extent of the problem, including the skills at risk, and their organization’s ability to tackle it. Second, they must develop a strategy to capture and transfer core skills from retiring employees and to identify, attract and retain new workers with critical skills. Finally, they must manage and measure the progress of the entire effort. The bottom line is that leaders in this arena know that capturing critical workforce knowledge and skills can’t be left to chance.

Source: News Release Accenture May 10, 2005