Minding the company lore
Firms find that moving forward is easier when employees know where the company has been.
The goal seemed simple enough.
A mining firm in northern Canada decided in March 2001 to replace a metal housing on an iron-ore smelter with one made of a lightweight, plastic composite.
It bought the materials. Then, an in-house team formed to create the custom part began searching through company records for the specifications it needed for the job.
But when the specs were found, a critical piece of data was missing.
The mining firm figured it would make a quick call to the company that had designed the smelter. Engineers there, however, came up with the same incomplete set of plans.
Frantic, bosses at the design firm launched what one executive now calls "a forensic investigation" into the whereabouts of "Bob," the individual who had drafted the original specifications. Retired, he was golfing in Florida when finally reached months later. His personal records held the needed numbers.
"They were able to track him down, but that's an exception to the rule," says Kimiz Dalkir, of Fujitsu Consulting in Edison, N.J., who was already developing a knowledge-management system for the mining firm - which she declined to identify more precisely - at the time. Ms. Dalkir says this long and costly exercise brought home to all involved the need to capture knowledge from an employee before she or he leaves.
The mining firm's case is not uncommon. In his autobiography, "Business @ the speed of thought," Bill Gates relates how the retired head of real estate and facilities at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus had to be called at home when blueprints for some buildings couldn't be found.
"Here we were, the largest developer of office space in the Seattle area ... and our entire 'knowledge base' of crucial information was being carried round in the heads of just a few people and in a few stacks of blueprints we didn't even have on file," Mr. Gates wrote.
The issue will be compounded in the years to come as baby boomers exit the workforce. "We're going to lose a critical mass of knowledge," warns Dalkir.
By 2005, baby boomers will be reaching age 60 at the rate of one every seven seconds, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 19 percent of the baby boomers holding executive, administrative, and managerial positions in the private sector are expected to leave by 2008.
The situation looks grim in the public sector, too. By 2005, more than half of the 1.8 million federal employees will be eligible to retire. That includes 71 percent of the senior executive service - the highest-ranking career professionals in the government.
"This will have a profound effect on every facet of economic life," says Hamilton Beazley, organizational-change guru and chairman of the consulting firm Strategic Leadership Group, in Washington, D.C.
While the downturn in the stock market may actually offer some respite, with many baby boomers planning to delay retirement, Mr. Beazley says many of those with flagging portfolios will be more likely to switch jobs than continue in their current positions.
