Problem: Management Team Decision

Brain Drain The whistle blows, signaling the end of the work day, and you automatically cringe. These days, that whistle seems like a warning bell for the mass exodus of employees you'll soon experience. You're a top manager at a nuclear power generator that employs thousands of engineers-for now, anyway. Very soon, though, you'll start loosing Baby Boomer workers to retirement. And you're not the only one. Within one decade, 43 percent of the work force will be eligible to retire. United States businesses expect a worker shortage of 10 million by 2010. As you await the arrival of your management team, you start to review the topic of your afterhours meeting. Your company will be hit hard by a double loss. Not only will you lose people (hard to replace), you'll lose their know-how (nearly impossible to replace). Skilled engineers have spent years acquiring the "tricks-of-the trade" and developing strategies for dealing with specifi c problems, so when they retire, a huge knowledge base will walk with them out the door. A recent survey found that 63 percent of companies worry that the retirement of talented workers will create a "brain drain." Like many companies, yours has put off dealing with its aging work force. Even though there's a plan for retaining some of your older workers on a part-time basis, it's only a temporary measure.

What you really need is a way to transmit knowledge from one group of employees to another-and to identify who has the knowledge you need to transmit. Many companies in similar situations have developed knowledge management projects. Bruce Power- another nuclear power generator-uses a knowledge management system called Kana IQ that helps engineers document their solutions to certain problems so that future workers can search previous employees' notes using decision trees and other algorithms. Technology isn't the only way to stem the knowledge hemorrhage, however. Some companies are implementing mentoring programs to educate their next generation of skilled employees. At Tennessee Valley Authority power plants, younger engineers are assigned to shadow older engineers to facilitate the transfer of impossible-to-document skills. So what will you do? Operating a nuclear power plant with less experienced workers is a dangerous proposition. Profitability and efficiency aren't the only concerns: Safety is also paramount. You can't delay much longer or you'll be in a crisis when the retirements start in large numbers. When you open your door to see what on earth is keeping your management team, you see them standing on your threshold mid-knock. It's time to get down to the hard business of creating a process for transmitting the wisdom of your older employees to your next generation of workers.

Questions: 1. How can you find out which employees are about to retire? And how do you determine whose knowledge is most critical? Develop a strategy for identifying soon-to-retire workers and ranking the importance of their knowledge.

2. What are the pros and cons of developing a knowledge management database? What could you do to keep your engineers from becoming overly dependent upon a database? What steps might you take to ensure that your knowledge management project stays inclusive and accessible?

3. What if you developed a mentoring program? What would be the pros and cons of that?

4. Will you invest in a knowledge management project or a mentoring program? Explain your decision.