knowledge management consulting

press release

Using Knowledge to Combat Turnover Issues

December 14, 2000 - Tempe, Arizona - With unemployment hovering at record low percentages, most companies are finding it imperative to take the issue of turnover more seriously than ever. Studies have shown that while every company experiences some turnover each year, the number of people leaving a company routinely increases when the labor market is tight.

According to Amy Roffmann New of The New Company, a Tempe, Arizona-based knowledge management consulting firm, the best way to deal with turnover is to develop a strategy before your corporate expertise starts walking out the door.

"Turn over is a significant issue." says New. "Especially when companies haven’t carefully assessed the value of expert information that exists only in the heads of key employees." One of the best ways to build a strategy for better managing your knowledge is called, not coincidentally, knowledge management (KM). A careful review of the knowledge assets that your company possesses will almost always yield opportunities for productivity games or increased revenues.

"The first step is assessing a inventory of your knowledge assets." says New. "Once you know ‘what you know’ it’s simply a process of seeking ways to spread that knowledge from key employees to co-workers."

Most knowledge management strategic plans can be boiled down to three steps which, while they can be time consuming, can have an immediate impact on productivity and revenue.

Assess your knowledge. This means figuring out the business-critical knowledge that key employees hold or knowledge that presents a significant amount of training for new hires.

Identify the ways to spread the knowledge throughout the company. Redistributing the knowledge in your company is critical to improving business results. For example, if one employee can complete twice as fast as other employees, formalize the faster process to that everyone can work more quickly.

Reassess your knowledge management strategy. Regular reassessment is a critical step to a successful KM strategy. By reassessing, you offer yourself the opportunity to measure the successes of previous KM projects and identify even more opportunities for improvement.

For more information on knowledge management, please contact The New Company at 480/894-2226 or visit the company’s website at www.thenewco.com. The New Company is a business communications consultancy focusing on using knowledge management tools to improve corporate revenue and productivity.

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