David said, <As someone new to the industry I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to work with the guy who was retiring for about two months. He passed me his electronic files and quizzed me to find out how little I knew before he retired(and pointed me in the right direction). The best part was working with him (at least for a little while) gave me a chance to take notes and not start with a gap of having the role vacant.>
Two months is way better than nothing! Many firms are moving towards a model of allowing those approaching retirement to do one or both of these things:
-Dial down the hours gradually, which among other things may lessen the shock of transition.
-Spend a significant amount of PAID, PLANNED time in one's last several months in an advisory / transitional role with the express goal of doing knowledge transfer and download to archives and to employees who will be handling some of the roles and tasks of the retiree.
I attended internal company presentations that touted the benefits of this approach. Ask your HR professionals if they have heard of this approach. My firm talked the talk but did not walk the walk in this area, instead preferring to dump new work onto me non-stop until the date of departure.
Management may say that they want knowledge transfer to occur. But if they do not provide a mechanism and support for it and instead demand that one remain "charge-able" to client accounts to the maximum, they are ignoring the cost of losing decades of accumulated knowledge and wisdom on the retirement of experienced workers. That cost is perhaps hidden or ignored, but it is very real. I did provide guidance to younger engineers where I could, but that was a far smaller knowledge transfer than could have happened, and I feel that I was penalized in performance reviews for not having more billable hours rather than mentoring others even to the limited extent that I did.
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Paul Tibbals
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-13-2020 12:34
From: David Lammers
Subject: Passing on knowledge
As someone new to the industry I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to work with the guy who was retiring for about two months. He passed me his electronic files and quizzed me to find out how little I knew before he retired(and pointed me in the right direction). The best part was working with him (at least for a little while) gave me a chance to take notes and not start with a gap of having the role vacant.
I have done a lot of reading Krauss's book "Steels: Processing, Structure, and Performance" and Degarmo's "Materials and processes in Manufacturing" as well as some ASM courses has helped get me started. It is amazing how there is always something new to learn everyday. And what great text books are out there, the best books still seam to be from the 1945-1970 when textbooks were written to be read cover to cover, like a book and not just a reference book(modern textbooks seem to be written to read one chapter with examples to get information and be done without the context of the rest of the book).
I hate to say it but I did not truly appreciate learning when I was a student. It was after I had taught welding as an adjunct instructor and was doing production welding that I really found an appreciation for continuous learning and the relentless search for knowledge.
This forum is read by people eager and hungry for the knowledge and wisdom of those who have come before so thank you for your contributions.
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David Lammers
Engineer
Total Component Solutions
Rock Valley IA
(712)451-6646
Original Message:
Sent: 07-09-2020 16:00
From: Walter Sperko
Subject: Passing on knowledge
A question to seasoned professionals: What are you doing to pass on what you know to the next generation?
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Walter Sperko
President
Sperko Engineering Services Incorporated
Greensboro NC
(336) 674-0600
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