As baby boomers approach retirement, organizations face a critical challenge: how to retain their invaluable knowledge and expertise. Our study Rethinking Knowledge Transfer , with insights from 10 international cooperation organisations, aims to inspire a more strategic approach to knowledge transfer. This article is one of four in-depth explorations on the topic. Learn more about the study. As the baby boomer generation exits the workforce, some organisations face a knowledge retention challenge, particularly in the international cooperation sector.
With their departure, the question arises: where does organisational knowledge reside? Is it embedded in individuals or can it be captured in tools and systems, minimising the loss of expertise? The impetus for the study was concern about the transition organisations experience as the baby boom generation retires. This generation, born between and or between and , depending on the definition , was so named by the press because of the peak in births in the period after the Second World War.
Baby boomers, who constitute a major demographic wave in Switzerland like elsewhere in the Western world, have also played a leading role in international cooperation, influencing and shaping it and often occupying expert or management positions in organisations. This generation is now leaving the labour market. Yet this gap will not be sufficiently filled because fewer young people are entering the workforce. This has consequences for Swiss society, politics and institutions.
For employers, too, there is a risk of a loss of knowledge, efficiency, networks and experience cf. From our interviews, we learned that some organisations in the international cooperation sector feel a critical need to capture and institutionalise the expertise of retiring, seasoned professionals as they hold unique skills acquired over long periods of their professional lives. Baby boomers have gained not only experienced-based references, judgement, attitudes, intuitions, appreciation for risk and opportunity, but also practical Β« hacks Β» i.
This generation also holds systemic and institutional memory, which can drastically increase efficiency and effectiveness in decision making and strategising, e. Many of these traits are deeply embedded in personal experience and cannot easily be externalised, captured, transmitted or replaced. While this is especially true for the baby boomer generation, retaining knowledge as seasoned team members leave remains an ongoing challenge for organisations.
