Accessible Knowledge Management Alternatives

Roy MarkDec 2010

A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study

~ Chinese proverb

(or a 100 page report !!!)

Roy MarkTotal HRM

"Like hermit crabs seeking larger shells, people today are yearning for more accommodating arrangements in which to undertake their work.

"Their quibble is not with work itself. We all understand the need to

undertake work in order to improve our lives and provide for our dependents.

No, the underlying source of anguish for many people in work today is

an antiquated system of employment and management designed for an industrial age." 

Roy MarkTotal HRM

~ Richard Donkin – The Future of Work

Our Knowledge Retention Challenges• Issues

– Reducing our workforce obviously also reduces the immediately accessible knowledge pool

– An ageing workforce with an opportunity to take VR and early retirement may result in a sudden loss of knowledge and experience from the organisation

– We may not need people in the short-term with what may be viewed as legacy knowledge, but we may need this knowledge/experience at some stage in the future, either regularly or for short term needs

– Most skills are transferable (with time) or can be documented, but ‘wisdom’ and experience are less so

– Can we be certain that those to whom we wish to transfer the knowledge to will also remain with us (eg, we will have a more transient ‘Y Gen’ workforce)

– We can not afford to retain knowledge or transfer/document all knowledge ‘just in case’ it is needed

– We need solutions that enable cost cutting, with risk mitigation and reflect the realities of preferred working styles

What are our likely needs?• Possible knowledge/experience needs;

– Customer engagement

– Policy interpretation

– Policy drafting

– Process development

– Project implementation ‘short-cuts’

– Key specialist technical knowledge

– Legacy knowledge

– Documentation reviews

– Audits/Design reviews

– Network facilitation

Alternative employment methods• Possible needs

– Phased/semi retirement

– Agency worker

– Self employed

• day rate

• Fixed/task completion fee

• Retainer/minimum hours

• Collaboration fee

• Bid for work

– Part-time (‘non-exec’ engineer)

Alternative employment methods

Work Method Benefits Considerations•Phased Semi-retirement

–Work reduces gradually over a period of years–The replacement works along side job holder and gradually takes over, task by task

•Enables a risk averse approach to reducing hours of work where the demand or level of knowledge held is unquantifiable

•Cost reduction over full-time employment

•Employee utilised on other work such as design committee chair

•Effects on;–Redundancy payments–Company pension–Employment contract

•Impact if need is shorter or longer than originally expected

•Agency worker–Recalled for short term needs–Used as reviewer to check and challenge the work of others

•Enables recall for the specific areas where existing knowledge is low

•Costs are low compared to ongoing permanent employment and known amount

•Enables current staff to focus on the ‘new’ elements of a project and not the routine/established best practice

•Effects on;–Employee relations in creating an employment model of increased levels of temporary workers

Alternative employment methods

Work Method Benefits Considerations

•Self Employed Consultant–day rate

•Paid fixed per diem

–Fixed/task completion fee

•A set fee is paid for the delivery of a defined service or piece of work

–Retainer/minimum hours

•A retained contract is agreed promising a minimum number of hours work per annum which is utilised flexibly depending on business need

–Collaboration fee

•A collaborative project operates on-line where accepted contributions only are remunerated against

•‘Use and loose’ them

•Flexible labour pool to cope with project gaps and overlaps without impacting the customer

•Aids a more agile/rapid method of delivery

•Clarity of costs

•Less expensive that permanent employment

•Requires effective resource management to ensure a ‘just in time’ resourcing model is adopted and that assignment ‘drift’ does not occur or delivery and quality levels not achieved

•Cultural and ER impact needs considering and an open debate on what the organisations employment strategy is and this communicating

•If used in larger numbers then such people need to be considered in HR strategy and policy to as greater extent than at present

Alternative employment methods

Work Method Benefits Considerations

•Work Package Bid Centre

–Packages of work are placed on a secure web site

–Registered, security cleared members of the site may bid for work and are then selected based on expertise, past service /quality record, cost and delivery promise

•Allows work packages to be outsourced

•Enables rapid development of work

•Work quality is visible by the sponsoring manager

•Payment made on delivery of final work package and subject to quality control

•Cash flow benefits

•Incentives easily added where quick turnaround of work is required

•Company owns copyright for all work, whether complete or not.

•Reduced cost of overheads through remote working

•Enables increased use of homebound workers and our diversity profile

•Security

•System requirements

•If successful may change the role of manager for such work and the skills required, eg, remote management

Example Work Package Bidding Site• The context – what is

your talent strategy for?

• Draft an outline Talent Strategy for your organisation

• Talent for WHAT? How is ‘potential’ different from ‘performance’?

• Consider the Return on Investment (ROI) and the metrics that will be used to evaluate success

• Identify the information gaps that must be filled to complete the strategy and take it further

Example Work Package Bidding Site

Next Steps?• Confirm the need

– Likely attrition of legacy and current key knowledge holders during current HR1 process

– Identify when this attrition is likely to occur

– Identify the risk levels for types of knowledge lost v ability/cost to replicate

• Suitable methods of alternative working identified, and barriers identified

• Assess likelihood and impact of overcoming these barriers

• Consider and identify pilot work needs and potential candidates