Why is it important for your organization to have a plan in place for preserving organizational knowledge?

For businesses that plan to be around awhile, succession planning is a critical but often underdeveloped part of their training plan. And at no time in recent memory can you build as strong a case for having a succession plan in place as today.

Simply, many of your longest running and best performers are baby boomers who are leaving the workforce in droves for sunnier vistas. Now is not just a great time, but may be your last chance, to capture what they know and preserve it for your future employees.

Another critical aspect of preserving internal knowledge right now is that many of your workers who need to be drinking from the fountain of your internal wisdom aren’t even in your organization yet. With the economy still running on maybe one cylinder – on a good day – recent college grads who would normally have been snapped up at job fairs are still waiting tables until you are ready to hire them.

A recent study using U.S. Census data shows that 40% of Millennials and 37% of GenXers are unemployed.

Here’s a summary of that study:

(MarketWatch) Some 40% of unemployed workers are millennials, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce released to MarketWatch, greater than Generation X (37%) and baby boomers (23%). That equates to 4.6 million unemployed millenials – 2 million long-term – 4.2 million unemployed Xers and 2.5 million jobless baby boomers.”

Source: www.mybudget360.com/young-unemployment-rate-millenials-economic-trends-jobs-income/

In the intervening time, the skills off the young unemployed are growing fallow and their opportunities to be learning at the knees of your in-house gurus is slipping away.

Now, not later, is the time to start building your internal knowledge base, including but not limited to, building formal training programs that preserve institutional knowledge while the people who know your business best are still under your roof.