Will your tribal knowledge walk out the door without grooming the next generation of leaders?
Although planning for retirement has long been regarded as the responsibility of the employee, research indicates that employers who offer pre-retirement educational programs reap concrete benefits far beyond goodwill.
Our research is starting to reveal that employees who feel valued by their organizations and appreciated by their colleagues are far more likely to transfer their knowledge to their younger counterparts before they retire. And these employees are more likely to mentor their successors even after they leave the workforce. People who feel valued by their firms are willing to remain accessible to their replacements by agreeing to take calls, answer emails and meet former colleagues in an effort to transfer their knowledge and expertise.
On the other hand, our findings reveal that if employees feel unappreciated by their organizations or disrespected by their co-workers they tend to cut all ties with their employer.
In a knowledge economy organizations cannot afford to lose their corporate memory.
Unfortunately, organizations are still slow to recognize the value of their mature workforce, and they are even slower to put in place knowledge transfer initiatives.
Experts warn that if a disproportionally high number of workers retire at the same time, firms will lose a significant amount of “know how” and firm-specific knowledge.
Companies often fail to realize that retirements lead to knowledge loss, which can result in costly mistakes, decreased productivity and performance disruptions.
What’s more, business costs are further elevated as new employees require time to learn new competencies and function at optimal performance levels. As I discussed before, replacing your mature workers is not as easy as hiring new talent (for more info read the blog on this subject).
Experts Delong and Mann maintain that lost knowledge is one of the costliest problems confronting today’s organizations. And yet, these researchers argue, it is an issue that often neglected. As a result, the knowledge and experience of older workers remains a badly-managed business asset in most firms.
When employees feel that you care about their wellbeing, they become active and willing participants in grooming the next generation of leaders.
One way to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from older employees to their younger counterparts is to ensure that people feel valued. For older workers sponsoring pre-retirement educational programs communicates that they are valued members of the organization, and their wellbeing is important even after their exit from work.
As people near retirement, they can become anxious about this transitional period, which consequently affects the quality of their work.
Preparing employees for life after work enables them to gain a better understanding of what to expect from the retirement transition, which reduces stress, increases productivity and decreases absenteeism and health insurance claims. All good for your organization’s bottom line.
But more importantly – it is just good business practice!
