How to Reduce Knowledge Gaps After Employee Turnover

When an employee leaves your organization, your teams may struggle to figure out how to reduce knowledge gaps. Whether your organization is large or small, an unexpected departure can disrupt projects as that person’s unique skills and knowledge often leave with them.

It’s best to develop strategies to prevent or address this scenario before you’re actually in it, so check out our tips below!

1. Capture the knowledge before it leaves
2. Document solutions and best practices
3. Cross-train your employees
4. Be aware of their “unseen labor”
5. Encourage mentorship opportunities
6. Make training readily available

Let’s look deeper into how to reduce knowledge gaps with these tips.

Capture the knowledge before it leaves

By putting an internal knowledge sharing system in place at your organization, you allow your employees to contribute their knowledge and learn from others on an ongoing basis. Implement an official knowledge management system (like Pinnacle Series, which doubles as an e-learning platform) and teach employees how to create content in their area of expertise. Pinnacle Series lets you assign “subject-matter expert” roles, so your top performers can manage knowledge sharing on the topics they know best.

Document solutions and best practices

One of the most frustrating things about knowledge gaps is when you need to solve the same problem twice. But if your previous problem-solver is no longer with the company, you may not have a choice! That’s why it’s important to keep track of the solutions and processes that have been successful in the past to reduce knowledge gaps. Create documents or instructional videos and store them in your internal knowledge system where employees can easily access them.

Cross-train your employees

It’s dangerous to only have one person who can perform particular tasks or even knows what their role entails. Even in organizations with low turnover rates, vacations and illness can pull employees from production too! Cross-training essentially means training employees to be able to fulfill different team members’ roles, so they can step in when needed. This may just mean learning a few extra key skills and responsibilities for people who already work in similar positions.

Be aware of their “unseen labor”

Sometimes, you don’t even realize how much an employee is doing for the company until they’re gone! They might be the person that others go to for help with certain questions. They might maintain documents, technology, or automated processes their team uses. Or they might help with onboarding new employees. Encourage managers to make a note whenever an employee is taking on a new responsibility, so you’re aware of every place a knowledge gap could emerge.

Encourage mentorship opportunities

Past generations have been passing down their knowledge for as long as humanity has been around. You can create a microcosm of this in the workplace through mentorship! Encourage more senior team members to take on newer employees and serve as formal or informal mentors. Strengthen workplace relationships and transfer knowledge all in one!

Make training readily available 

By providing learning and development resources that your employees can access anytime they want, you’ll be closing knowledge gaps before you even need to. Pinnacle Series is a perfect option for AEC and manufacturing organizations to provide on-demand training to teams across the company.

Learning how to reduce knowledge gaps after employee turnover is good, but do you know what’s even better? Increasing retention, so you don’t have to worry in the first place!

Learn how Pinnacle Series can improve employee retention rates and Schedule a demo or pilot to see its benefits for yourself.

If you’re already a Pinnacle Series subscriber, log in now to take advantage of features like custom content, document storage, and internal subject matter experts to help prevent future knowledge gaps at your organization.