When employees leave the organization, important knowledge
can often leave the building with them.
This loss of information can be especially significant when
senior team members with years of experience and industry knowledge leave.
Resolving these failures and adhering to best practices when laying off
employees is not a new issue. However, governments that have been slow to
prepare for the transition of their aging staff may soon find themselves
overwhelmed by the task as a generation of workers prepares for retirement.
In the Financial Times article, "Preserving the
Know-How of the Retirement Generation," author Andrew Baxter shares that
"the oldest of the 76 million to 78 million American baby boomers will
reach retirement age in the coming years." According to statistics
provided by Accounting Age, "The US employs nearly 45 million people
during the economic boom, which is about 29 percent of the workforce in
2015." In short, a significant portion of the staff will soon leave, if
not already.
The energy industry is an industry facing a potentially
huge loss of knowledge.
A staff survey by the American Electricity Association
(APPA) found that over the next five years, 20% of utility workers will be
eligible for retirement. Despite this perception, predicting when large numbers
of retirees will enter the industry is not as easy as it used to be. There remained
a time when pensions were managed almost exclusively by the employer, making it
easier to predict when and how many employees would retire. However, most
American workers today rely on personal contribution plans such as 401 (k) s,
making it difficult for employers to obtain reliable data on retirement dates.
Historically, organizations have transition plans so that
senior employees can train the next generation. This provides an chance to
share institutional knowledge as well as intangible know-how gained from years
of experience. Given the large number of retirees leaving at the same time,
this may not be realistic. In addition, industries using this traditional
approach remain vulnerable to knowledge loss due to employee turnover.
Only through automation can organizations reduce the
pressure of losing senior team members.
In Emerging Technologies: Addressing Today's Aging
Workforce, John Fryer says, “Companies that implement automated systems for
tasks such as monitoring, collecting and analyzing data will find new hires
ready to work within weeks or months, and not years. "
Automating tasks isn't just about efficiency, it's about
freedom. "Activities such as preventive maintenance of industrial plants
can now be performed with wireless monitoring tools that can actually reduce
time and costs by 50 percent." Automation allows employees to focus on
critical job functions, including transferring intangible knowledge from their
position to their successors.
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