How to Capture Key Employee Knowledge in 3 Steps

Editor's note: this transcript was generated by AI and has been lightly edited for clarity and relevance — some sections have been shortened or removed, and minor transcription errors corrected.

Full transcript

00:00:06Host

Loss of key members of staff is a risk that many organisations recognise and want to do something about. You also need a plan in place for when key people retire or leave. The best way is to capture that knowledge — document it. Of course, not everything about a key member of staff can be captured, but there is much that can be. Here are the 3 key steps to capturing their knowledge.

00:00:57Host

One: identify the essential knowledge. Identify the knowledge the employee has that can be documented, captured in as clear a way as possible. The best way to do this is by process mapping — a process map clearly shows the items used, the items produced, and the main activities in between.

00:01:37Host

Two: sit down with your employees and capture their knowledge. Review the process with them and agree, "yes, that really is what they do." This may take a few goes. If needed, supporting knowledge can be captured in a text-based work instruction, linked from the process map.

00:02:09Host

Three: make the business knowledge accessible. Once captured, the process maps must be intelligently presented to other staff. A process-led QMS does this well — ensure it is accessible to all, easy and pleasant to use, and has great search functionality.

00:02:37Host

So there you have it: plan ahead, capture key processes with each of your staff, and in future, if they leave, new staff can hit the ground running. It's not a quick process, but once achieved, so many business benefits follow — not least that when key staff leave, that business knowledge doesn't go with them.