Many companies only realize the loss of an employee once they have already left the job, especially when critical situations arise in which the know-how of the experienced employee would have been worth its weight in gold. Harvard Business Review has defined the most significant losses of know-how - and we will show you how you can cleverly prevent them in order to retain valuable knowledge within the company.
Take measures to minimize the risk of knowledge loss before your employee changes jobs and digitize the knowledge within your company quickly and easily.
Relation
Scenario:
Alexander has retired. Before he leaves, he makes a list of all his contacts, which he makes available to the company. This list contains all the contacts with whom Alexander has built up a wonderful business relationship over the years. He knows who he needs to contact to initiate new projects, find partners for collaborations and who is a specialist in which field. The company accepts the list, but all that can be seen on it are names and addresses. The information on the individual people is lost.
Exemplary solution:
Alexander scrolls through his XING network, capturing his screen. In alphabetical order, he names the specialty of all company-relevant contacts and explains which projects have been realized together. He also includes anecdotes that refer to the personality of the contact person.
An interpersonal relationship does not develop overnight. Alexander can therefore not be replaced immediately. However, it is possible to provide supporting information for new relationships and to build on Alexander's experience.
Reputation
Scenario:
Hans has been an external machine and plant operator for KMU GmbH for some time. When he starts his transfer to the USA, his client regrets this very much. Hans has always done excellent work for KMU GmbH, knows their working methods and the special features of the individual machines. Accordingly, the customer's expectations of his successor are very high. Unfortunately, he does not know the special cases of the machines and often takes a long time to find a suitable solution. The customer is disappointed and considers switching to another company.
Exemplary solution:
Hans films the work on the machines with his cell phone camera and adds simple explanations afterwards. This allows him to create an optimal simulation video, which makes the work of his successor much easier and prevents errors.
Re-work
Scenario:
After a long time, Petra has decided to change companies. Before her move, she trains her new colleague Sandra. However, in the short time she is still with the company, she does not manage - in addition to handing over projects and completing her own tasks - to provide the new colleague with important information about the company's internal working methods, communication and intranet. When Petra finally leaves the company, Sandra feels left alone. She doesn't know who in the company is responsible for what and how she can clarify her questions, which also has a negative impact on her work performance.
Exemplary solution:
Internal processes are regularly recorded by all colleagues. This relieves the employee who is responsible for offboarding so that they can concentrate on completing their own tasks. Short explanatory videos can be shared with new employees before they start work, making it easier for colleagues to familiarize themselves with the new job and for them to get started (known as "pre-boarding").
Regenartion
Scenario:
When Steve Jobs left Apple Inc., Apple's best-selling innovations were stagnating. His experience and wealth of knowledge were what drove innovation in the company. Apple was no longer able to bring successes such as the iPhone, the iPod or the iPad to the market.
Solution:
Here, too, it becomes clear that you cannot clone a person. But you can efficiently store your knowledge and make it accessible to your successors. A video recording provides impetus and allows you to continue thinking about ideas that have already been conceived. This means you don't lose any information.
React quickly and digitize your knowledge
The only strategy to avoid a loss of knowledge due to job changes is to react before the loss occurs. This means that knowledge must be stored and shared efficiently. Some information can easily be written down. It can be published in internal company wikis or disseminated via forums without losing its comprehensibility.
Other information, however, be it empirical values or topics that require practical or visual illustration, reaches its limits with these methods. SlidePresenter's video creation helps you to optimize knowledge storage and transfer and to make the offboarding of existing employees and the onboarding of new employees as smooth as possible.