Are you losing your memory?

Judging from the results of the ‘Adecco Demographic Fitness Survey’, most firms don’t know where to find knowledge. The Adecco Institute is a research centre focused on the field of work and how work impacts individuals, regions and organizations. In late 2007, it conducted a survey across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to assess whether organisations are preparing for a workforce that is increasingly aging. By 2050, the population aged between 15 and 64, i.e. the share of the population considered as being of employable age, will drop by one fifth.

Adecco used a Demographic Fitness Index to measure five factors that influence a firm’s ability to leverage an ageing workforce:

• Career Management

• Lifelong Learning

• Knowledge Management

• Health Management

• Diversity Management

Career Management addresses the needs of both employers and employees, and helps develop a level of loyalty to the firm that cannot be fostered with traditional perks like pay increases. Employees who feel that their employer fails to accommodate their needs will look for opportunities elsewhere – taking their expertise with them.

Lifelong Learning is increasingly essential in a world of constant change. Both employers and employees must be committed to lifelong learning in order to keep ahead of the demands of business.

Knowledge Management is the effective management of the knowledge that employees typically carry around in their heads – whether this be business specific knowledge, vendor contacts, business processes, or even who to call to get certain problems resolved. It is essential that companies understand the risks they run when key employees depart.

Health Management addresses the needs of workers as they age – sensitivity to workers ergonomic and physical needs as well as encouraging healthy catering and providing ongoing health checks and consultations.

Diversity Management recognizes the necessity of creating a work environment that values each individual’s contribution – regardless of age or rank. Diversity management ensures that work groups include both older and younger workers.

Let’s focus on knowledge management or how well a firm tracks business-critical and company-specific knowledge. They asked those surveyed about the steps they took regarding the use, safeguarding and renewal of knowledge in their organisation. They offered a list of “tools” for consideration:

• Management Information Systems
• Customer relationship Management systems
• Internal online forums
• Internal “Yellow Pages”
• Building mixed age teams
• Standardised records of business-critical knowledge
• Targeted training
• Use of external consultants
• Co-operation with other companies
• Co-operation with colleges and other institutions
• Establishing own think tanks
• Contact with external think tanks

Most used were Use of external consultants, Co-operation with other companies and Targeted training. At the other end of the scale less than a third of the organisations surveyed used think tanks, “Yellow Pages” or internal online forums. However take up within these organisations was patchy (averaging 43%).

The UK performed worse than the European average: 31% of firms in the five countries claim to have conducted a full and complete analysis to identify the holders of business-critical knowledge in their firm. Only 18% of UK firms made the same claim. And only 25% of British firms have conducted an analysis of the risk of lost knowledge when individual employees leave.

When staff members leave, we lose vital expertise – explicit knowledge, such as how a product or process works, as well as implicit knowledge embedded in customer relationships, internal networks and firm culture and values. All of these can affect our ability to produce, innovate and compete.

These gaps in analysis will be critical to companies as the rate of retirement accelerates, and key business knowledge walks out the door – often, knowledge that isn’t missed until it is no longer there.

I wonder, if you now think about the knowledge assets that your company has, to what extent have you carried out an analysis of business-critical knowledge assets in your organisation?

Different types of knowledge

I’ll start by suggesting that knowledge is what we use as the basis for our actions. But as I work with different organisations and different individuals what I have noticed is that people are talking about different types of knowledge and these must be managed differently.

Typically we know for one of the following reasons:

· I recognise from a previous experience as in “I know that face”, “I have travelled this way before”, “I have encountered a problem like this in my previous job”, or “I have practice of doing it.”

· I have evidence and can replicate the result; it is quantified, written in a document.

· I understand because I have studied this, I understand because I have listened to what you say and can make sense of it, I understand because I have observed what is going on; or

· I believe, I have faith, I commit to without certainty, I trust you and you won’t let me come to harm.

As an example consider the debate caused by the Carbon dating of the Turin shroud. The Turin shroud is a linen cloth bearing the hidden image of a man who appears to have been crucified. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. It is believed by many to be a cloth worn by Jesus Christ at the time of his burial. In 1988 carbon dating estimated a date range of 1260 – 1390, suggesting this belief was wrong. This was convincing enough for most scientists, though caused a real dilemma for deeply religious scientists. However the evidence of science is not sufficient to convince the true believers. In fact a whole industry and science has sprung up around the Turin shroud called “Sindology.”

Why is it that each of us can see the same thing but conclude something different?

If we look at each type of knowledge in turn the mechanisms for capturing and sharing are different, some more straightforward than others.

Geoff