Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit
Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning (KS-SP) Toolkit
The Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit (“the toolkit”) equips hydropower organizations with essential tools and resources to effectively evaluate the risk of knowledge loss, initiate succession planning strategies, and foster a culture of knowledge sharing, irrespective of their current stage in the process. This comprehensive toolkit encompasses best practices and specialized tools designed to facilitate seamless succession planning and promote robust knowledge sharing practices throughout your organization.
The Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit is curated by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office.
Background
Similar to hydropower’s evolving role in grid operations, the hydropower workforce is also changing. With increasing rates of retirement and new workers entering the industry, there is a need to prevent the loss of organizational knowledge. Institutional knowledge loss is a challenge for many organizations, within and outside the energy sector. It often results from the attachment of knowledge about a specific job or an organizational process or function to an individual and not to the organization as a whole. Knowledge loss can have financial implications for organizations because bringing a new hire up to the same level of proficiency as their predecessor can take many years. It can also lead to knowledge gaps, which can increase pressure on existing employees and cause dissatisfaction, turnover, and reduced productivity. In some cases, retired staff are hired back to consult to an organization because they are the only sources of the knowledge needed to do the job.
Knowledge sharing and succession planning can help all organizations prepare for worker turnover and avoid operational disruptions of any size from knowledge loss. Effective knowledge sharing strategies are positively related to project completion, team performance, innovation capabilities, and an organization’s overall performance. They help reduce repeated mistakes and enhance problem solving, organizational synergy, and goal achievement. Engaging in succession planning can help your organization uncover information and plan for continued operations amid workforce changes.
There are two types of knowledge to consider: explicit and tacit.
- Explicit knowledge can be thought of as “knowing about”; it is the most basic form of knowledge and can be easily expressed, interpreted, and documented. Explicit knowledge includes practical, procedural, and rule-based knowledge. Examples include frequently asked questions (FAQs), white papers, and reference documents.
- Tacit knowledge can be thought of as “knowing how”; it includes insights, intuitions, and hunches and can be difficult to formalize and share. Tacit knowledge is gained from personal experience and context that can be more difficult to express, including clues, instinct, and wisdom. This type of knowledge takes more time to develop.
Knowledge Sharing can be defined as the “process of capturing skills and information and sharing them between employees and also between parts of an organization,” with a goal of making that knowledge available to all employees. This requires an understanding of “what an employee is expected to do (tasks), how they need to do it (steps), and what they need to know (context) to be successful
Succession planning is the process of identifying crucial positions in the organization and creating a talent pipeline by preparing employees to fill vacancies in their organization as others retire or move on. It can be broadly thought of as knowledge sharing within an organization and career development to avoid knowledge loss and the high cost of sourcing, selecting, and integrating talent from outside the company in the future.
Start Your Toolkit Journey
This toolkit is designed to give hydropower organizations the tools they need to start succession planning and create a knowledge sharing landscape, regardless of organization size. This information applies to anyone that hires, fires, or deals with personnel changes, such as managers and human resources staff. Regardless of how your organization is engaged with hydropower, this toolkit can help you implement effective knowledge sharing and succession planning practices.
The descriptions of the steps and sub-steps include built-in worksheets and tools that you can use within your organization.
Succession planning and knowledge sharing are important to all organizations, big and small. With the use of this toolkit, any level of management can create a culture that values knowledge sharing and begin implementing effective knowledge sharing and succession planning practices.
