Your most valuable asset is your intellectual capital, i.e., the knowledge of your employees. Unfortunately, when people move on, their knowledge goes with them. There are two different, but not mutually exclusive, strategic approaches for managing tacit and explicit knowledge.

Most of the work in the US today is mental labor as opposed to manual labor. As individuals get more skilled in their work and become experts, their value to your organization grows. Once an employee reaches relative expertise, their absence (or loss) becomes a significant detriment. But capturing their knowledge allows businesses to reduce the impact of absence substantially. However, effective knowledge capture is difficult because experts tend to have a high omission rate when attempting to detail and record their decision-making.

​Introduction

Corporations spend billions of dollars ($370B in 2019) on training each year. Given this level of investment, it is surprising that a relatively insignificant portion of the expenditure is spent examining training efforts’ efficacy.

For over 40 years, the Kirkpatrick Model, named for its creator Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick, has provided the most extensively used training evaluation guidance. The original model had four levels, but many researchers refined it in the intervening years. Now the model is often shown with a fifth level.

Many subject matter experts (SMEs) reach out to technical writers once a document has been drafted to help edit and prepare it for delivery. However, an experienced writer can provide valuable project support from the moment a documentation need is identified.

Measuring training effectiveness is one of the many responsibilities for learning and development professionals and one of the many priorities for senior leadership in workplaces. According to Statista Research Department, every year, U.S businesses collectively invest more than $80 billion on training their employees, and global spending on training and development has increased by 400% in 11 years. This investment cost emphasizes the importance of measuring training effectiveness and business impact.

One of the biggest challenges for organizations is what happens after the training. Typically, training is seen as an isolated event. Afterward, many learning development professionals and supervisors find themselves asking, “why is the employee not using the information from training” or “why hasn’t the employee’s performance increased following training.” Questions such as this suggest that knowledge transfer did not occur after the employee left the classroom or virtual training session.

Scientific study has proven that humans forget 50% of what they learn within one day of learning. After completing an online course, even the brightest minds cannot remember every piece of information presented.

We tend to forget information over time if we do not apply it to our daily activities. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve commonly represents the effect.

Scientific study has proven that humans forget 50% of what they learn within one day of learning. After completing an online course, even the brightest minds cannot remember every piece of information presented.

We tend to forget information over time if we do not apply it to our daily activities. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve commonly represents the effect.

One of the biggest challenges for organizations is what happens after the training. Typically, training is seen as an isolated event. Afterward, many learning development professionals and supervisors find themselves asking, “why is the employee not using the information from training” or “why hasn’t the employee’s performance increased following training.” Questions such as this suggest that knowledge transfer did not occur after the employee left the classroom or virtual training session.