Knowledge Management and Changing Workforces

Jim Murphy, Research Director for AMR Research, writes that, with the urgency of an aging workforce facing companies around the world, "it’s easy to lose a sense of balance. Stemming the brain drain, for many companies, means putting every ounce of effort into capturing what’s in an employee’s head before she walks out the door. HR organizations exert extraordinary effort here, urging departing employees to use their dwindling time to document their knowledge and cram it into a repository."

However, he says that a lack of consideration for transfer and reuse parts of the knowledge management (KM) process can stymie efforts and that, once in the repository, there’s little guarantee that the valuable knowledge ever emerges again. Thus, companies "have got to think ahead. Better KM strategies must account for and capitalize upon the skills and expertise of the incoming workforce, along with the tools they’re already accustomed to and adept at using.

On April 3, 2006, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST, AMR Research will conduct a live webcast on The Aging Workforce.

Source: "Harnessing Potential: Knowledge Management and Your Incoming Workforce" AMR Research (March 23, 2006)