When employees have been with your organization for a long period, finding someone to replace the job they performed daily is only a portion of the battle when they retire. Often, their hands-on presence regarding their actual job description isn’t even the most significant loss.

The knowledge they possess regarding company culture and other significant dynamics is a huge asset to lose when they finally bow out. These veterans often have a great deal of knowledge regarding the specific industry your organization exists within, and their effect on newcomers can be priceless.

Often, this knowledge isn’t something written down or anything that can be duplicated by reading the pages of a manual or taking a course. How does an organization retain this knowledge, so it doesn’t waste and use it to advance its interests?

Employees Retiring? Use Your LMS to Capture Their Knowledge

Using an LMS to Capture the Knowledge of a Retiring Workforce

Using your LMS can be a great way to capture the knowledge of an outbound workforce. The advantage of having an aging workforce is the vast array of knowledge they possess regarding your organization and how to get things done.

This knowledge can even be used to implement future training within your LMS portal. Often, old-timers possess tricks and tips regarding human-to-human interaction that can’t be duplicated with any technology.

In the following section, we’ll outline some of the best ways to capture the knowledge of outbound employees.

    1. Discussion Forums

Using a discussion forum is one of the most efficient ways to record the knowledge of some of the veterans within your organization. It allows new and less experienced team members to pick the brains of some of the longest-tenured employees within the company.

This also helps you establish more knowledgeable members of your staff and could get them noticed by corporate. Even as they’re compiling plans and making preparations to ride off into the sunset, their last couple of years with your organization could be their best.

Their willingness to continue to engage younger team members may provide substantial benefits after they take their final bow. This could potentially open up a consultation relationship after their official employment has ended.

    2. Sharing and Rating

Allow your veterans to share thoughts and photos through a blog that exists as an extension of your company website. The ideas and things they share could help ignite the thoughts of other younger team members.

Additionally, you could allow the veterans to rate your current learning management system and provide insight through posts on their blog. This will also spark feedback from other members of the team and lead to substantial input from all parties involved.

The blog could be incorporated as part of the LMS platform itself and be a place new employees can go to have questions answered. All of the most credible responses and comments could be stickied to the top and provide a source for answers in the future as well.

    3. Wikis

If you’re unfamiliar with what a Wiki is, it’s a collaborative space designed for creating and sharing knowledge documents and materials where anyone can make changes.  Encouraging senior team members to take an instrumental role in editing these Wikis can provide a permanent source for learning and education for new team members.

This would work especially well in terms of an LMS where information is constantly evolving. There currently exists an unharnessed potential in regard to Wikis and their relationship with LMS platforms anyway. This presents your organization with a true chance to utilize the infinite potential of Wikis as tools for growth and learning within your company.

Additionally, published Wikis give multiple veterans the opportunities to compile knowledge and provide their input in multiple topics that can be accessed from one location. Depending on the topic at hand, Wikis can be added to an LMS platform and categorized based on course material.

These would make great options to include as a feature similar to a FAQs section. This can be another great way to make veterans instrumental in the development of your LMS platform, even as an option as a consultant after they’ve moved on to retirement.

    4. Videos

Videos will always remain one of the most effective forms of learning and passing knowledge online or within an organization’s training program. This form of media has been known to improve user engagement with new employees for a very long time.

Videos were used as the primary source of training 10 or 15 years ago for most franchises and corporations. The growth of YouTube and other video platforms has further escalated video into one of the primary tools for enrichment and education. This actually sparked the primary return of video to the eLearning universe.

For many people, recording their thoughts via video as opposed to writing them down is a much easier process. This is especially true when it comes to the retiring workforce in terms of getting them to write on their own regarding the use of LMS. These videos can be used as a rich source of learning for your eLearning platform or encourage engagement for other social scenarios.

It’s also possible that the videos can be used directly within your LMS training modules instead of just transplanting the knowledge from video to course content. This could be a great way to promote corporate culture and give new employees a look at some of the most esteemed veterans within the organization.

New hires and trainees love to see examples of team members that rode with an organization for the long haul. Not only does it give them a rich sense of company culture, but it also gives them the opportunity of sticking with a company for the duration of their career.

Additionally, these options could be a great way to maintain a healthy relationship with your veterans after they’ve entered retirement. Keeping them active on a consulting basis or inviting them to speak to new hires is a great way to keep lines of communication open.