Most Companies Have No Plan To Deal With Impending Brain DrainMost Companies Have No Plan To Deal With Impending Brain Drain

Most companies recognize that an exodus of talent threatens their business in the coming years, yet few have knowledge retention programs to deal with a brain drain caused by retiring baby boomers, according to a survey by Monster Worldwide.

In the next 10 years, about one-in-three companies expect 20% or more of their workforce will be eligible to retire, according Monster's recent national survey of 550 HR managers.

However, only 20% of companies have formal strategies to manage and preserve organizational knowledge, said Jeff Quinn, director of Monster Intelligence, the research arm of online job site Monster.com, in an interview.

That's because most companies are too busy focusing on short-term issues, like current employee turnover, he said. "A good knowledge strategy could help these companies feel less under the gun in dealing with their problems today, as well," he said.

However, companies face many hurdles in setting knowledge management strategies, including limited resources and personnel to launch these forward-looking programs, as well as difficulty in measuring return on investment.

Also, employees are often skeptical and suspicious about why they need to show their hand to employers about the depth of knowledge they have, fearful that sharing too much information makes them vulnerable to being replaced by cheaper labor.

Traditionally, consulting companies have been among leaders in formalized employee knowledge management and retention programs, utilizing organizational intranets, blogs, discussion forums, and other means of sharing knowledge, he said.

E-mail is the most common way companies share knowledge today, followed by company meetings.

Among the recommendations is to appoint a chief knowledge officer who is accountable and responsible for an organizational knowledge management strategy. Also, companies need to create incentives for workers to share their knowledge with others, such as including it in employee performance measures.

Some companies have already deployed short-term plans to tap into retiring talent, including mentoring programs or having retirees, such as legacy programmers, participate in important meetings, he said.