It’s estimated that over 11,000 people a day will turn 65 over the next 2 years. Many of those people will decide to retire or move to part-time jobs. When these workers leave, they’ll take a great deal of institutional knowledge with them.
As with documenting procedures, artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help. However, it requires a coordinated effort – and a great deal of trust.
Video interviews with these employees are a good starting point. With remote workers, there are tools that are built-in, or can be added to web conferencing software to generate transcripts of the meeting. Have prepared questions for specific topics, allowing the person to follow their natural conversation style. Let the person being interviewed edit the transcript to ensure it captures what they meant to say.
With their explicit permission, install screen recording software on their computer. Have them record their most common tasks – like responding to a customer request, creating an invoice, or drafting a new template. Whenever possible, have them narrate their thought process.
Use AI tools to create procedures, process maps and checklists. Take it one step further, and create an “AI agent” based on the employee. Train the agent using the employee's actual responses to problems and the above recordings. Before the person leaves, have them review the agent’s responses to new problems.
There is well-founded skepticism around the methods described above. They could be used surreptitiously to replace humans with robots – software or physical. However, when used properly, these methods can capture knowledge of experienced employees to support the team after they leave. Effective managers and principled leaders will use the technology appropriately.
Amazing Astronomical Fact: There are only 12 or 13 full moons a year. Certain celestial events, like a lunar eclipse or meteor shower are less common. Total solar eclipses are even rarer, as the path of totality is only 70 to 120 miles wide.
Astronomers, especially amateur stargazers, plan calendars and travel schedules around these events. Invariably, some of those plans are interrupted by clouds, or even worse, rain.
Sometimes, the clouds will help provide an “artistic aspect” to the night’s viewing. Other times, it means staying indoors. Faced with an open schedule, the disruption allows time for organizing past photos, reading about new discoveries, or researching future cosmic displays.
Viewing the night sky reminds us that we often can’t control the events around us. We can only control how we respond to those events.
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