A knowledge transfer plan ensures that when someone leaves your organization, their key knowledge doesn’t go with them. It reduces the stress remaining employees feel and ensures that when someone is promoted they can hit the ground running.
It’s so effective that organizations with a strong knowledge transfer program achieve a 15-30% boost to productivity.
On the other hand, companies with poor knowledge transfer processes lose an average of $420,000 per year. Ouch.
When your organization has a solid knowledge management process, it boosts employee engagement by 20%. Which makes sense; employees are desperate for opportunities to learn and grow. Knowledge transfer is just one of the ways you can support that.
So, let’s take a deeper dive into how a knowledge transfer plan elevates your employee experience. Plus, what steps you can take to boost yours:
A knowledge transfer plan keeps everything running when someone leaves
We’ve all worked for an organization where one person holds the keys to a particular area.
Then that person leaves, and the rest of the organization is left scrambling to clean up the mess and work out what to do. This slows everyone down, creates unnecessary stress, and costs money.
Unfortunately, when one person holds all the knowledge, this is an inevitability. Especially if that person leaves suddenly or goes on a sabbatical or long-term sick leave. And by then, it’s too late to ask the person with all the answers.
A knowledge transfer plan prevents this. It ensures that more than one person holds the keys and knows what to do when things go wrong, or how to access certain things.
They help with employee attraction and retention
83% of employees consider learning and development opportunities a key factor when choosing an employer.
When you provide these valuable opportunities, your people are more likely to stick around because you’re offering them something to help them upskill and reskill in a challenging market, where so many jobs are being erased or undervalued by AI.
Over two thirds of employees will leave a role without adequate learning and development opportunities, according to Totaljobs. Companies that don’t support employees to grow risk losing their high performers as they choose not to stagnate.
With a knowledge transfer plan in place, you can ensure that employees can focus on learning new skills and approaches, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
They streamline the career ladder
Having a knowledge transfer plan is also vital to supporting employees as they climb the career ladder.
It ensures that when they start their new role, they have the skills to hit the ground running instead of fumbling around trying to figure things out once they’ve received the promotion.
For example, over half of new managers don’t get any training before a promotion. This means they have no idea how to handle people management, team dynamics, conflict resolution, etc. Despite these being vital skills for any manager to be successful and support their employees.
When managers are offered this training, they’re better able to give their employees the support they need and can juggle their own priorities more easily. As a result, there’s no loss of productivity or increase in stress; they already have everything they need to succeed in their new role.
What to include in your knowledge transfer plan
Now that we know why having a knowledge transfer plan is important, let’s explore what to include in yours.
Employee groups
Employee groups are one of the simplest ways to encourage knowledge transfer between employees. Anyone can join them, manage them, or set them up.
They can work for just about any topic, whether it’s work-related or not.
They also support employee engagement by getting team members to talk to people outside of their immediate department. This fosters a sense of belonging and creates a more connected workforce that collaborates better together.
Documentation
Writing down everything employees need to know about a company, team, or industry is one of the best ways to support knowledge transfer. It ensures that people can go back to it time and time again, so it’s always there even if the original writer left years ago.
Don’t just assume that someone knows something or will pick it up by osmosis. It’s often not that simple, especially if someone has been at the company a long time, there’s a culture that’s against asking questions, or they’re afraid to ask.
Writing everything down in a knowledge transfer plan removes these hurdles. It makes all the information someone might need accessible to everyone regardless of when or why they want it.
Mentoring
One of the best ways to transfer knowledge between employees is mentoring. It enables more senior employees to kick-start the careers of younger employees by helping them avoid the pitfalls they experienced.
Factoring this more informal information into your knowledge transfer plan ensures team members get the full picture.
Coaching
Coaching can help employees become better problem solvers, adapt to the new working world, and be better team players.
All of these things can help with knowledge transfer, from the people sharing their knowledge becoming better at doing so, to the people receiving knowledge becoming better listeners.
Coaches themselves will also have knowledge they can share to boost employees’ effectiveness in a role.
Resources like books and courses
Books and podcasts are still effective ways for employees to learn new things and update their knowledge. They’re an immersive way to digest new information, requiring concentration—particularly when reading—which means employees are more likely to retain the new knowledge.
To make the reading more effective, they could take notes from the book of key points and translate those key points into their own words. This helps with understanding and memory recall.
Online courses are a useful way to learn, particularly in niche industries or if an employee isn’t based in a big city. They reduce the cost of travel while ensuring employees don’t miss out on knowledge that could support their career growth.
Incorporating these resources into your knowledge transfer plan can help cater to different learning styles as well.
In-person events
For employees trying to grow their knowledge, there are few better opportunities than in-person events.
They’re great networking opportunities and at the right event, speakers can help spark new ideas and teach attendees more about the organization or your specific industry.
Conclusion
A knowledge transfer plan ensures that when an employee leaves, their important company and industry knowledge doesn’t go with them. These are just a few of the ways you can support knowledge transfer within your business.
If you’d like to create a culture of knowledge sharing, why not establish a hub for both formal and informal information? With important learnings, employee groups and events, and more all in the same place, your knowledge transfer plan will basically make itself.
Workrowd can be that hub. Our intuitive interface ensures employees can quickly find what they need, no matter where or when they work. Get in touch today to find out more.
