Transferring experiential knowledge

Transferring

experiential knowledge

The latest on…

What are the issues at stake for companies

and employees?

How can they be developed and more easily transferred?

Experiential knowledge: what’s it all about?

Companies today are familiar with academic

knowledge, how to gain it and how to transfer it.

The same cannot be said of the experiential

knowledge gained in and through work.

Yet the stakes for performance and

working conditions are high: lost

skills, integrating new workers,

protecting consumer health and

more… It is thus crucial, both for

the organisations and the individuals,

to create the conditions for instituting

the processes conducive to transferring

experiential knowledge in professional

practices.

Experiential Knowledge: What’s It All About?

defi ne and express, and encompass a whole set of ways of being, thinking and dealing with a work situation.

It is the opportunity to analyse such situations (each given experience) and deriving from them the lessons that will allow us to develop that experiential knowledge.

While this refl exive work is individual, it very often takes place in a group setting through interaction with one’s peers or one’s leadership.

Experiential knowledge makes it possible for employees to cope with unexpected events and take effective action in accordance with the work situations encountered. They also contribute to protect individuals’ physical and mental health.

When experiential knowledge contributes to safeguarding health in the workplace

The integration and training systems instituted in response to safety and health issues continue to focus primarily on conveying instructions and generally bypass the experiential knowledge learning that takes place within the group working environments.

With experience, employees become capable of coping with job demands, all the while protecting their health and that of others, as they establish their own ability to foresee, prevent and recover.

Such experiential knowledge, sometimes referred to as prudential expertise, encompasses a range of attitudes and behaviours, operating methods geared toward safety and preserving occupational health. For instance, the bus ticket puncher will choose between different methods for checking tickets, to more or less depth depending on how he assesses the risk of the situation’s spinning out of control (number of users, location of next step). Another example would be found in the group of safety agents on the motorway who protect the greenhorn employee from the physical and psychological risks inherent in the emergency work arising from a traffi c accident.

Experience builds up through practice

Transposition Perspective gained Conceptualisation Recognition Individual receives recognition for new skills from work team

Individual faced with new work situations

Individual formulates, understands

and analyses them

Individual derives lessons

3

4

1

2

Experiential knowledge is built up through an individual’s experience on the job and, in part, outside the workplace. It rounds out the “ academic knowledge ” gained through education.

Skills lost upon the retirement of an employee in a

key function in the company and/or in possession of skills which no or few others have.

Greater fl exibility in the organisation or more depth in job content thanks to the development of

multi-skilling.

More effective change management, whether

technologically or organisationally, with training initiatives and through work.

Capitalisation on knowledge thanks to the

development of collaborative tools.

Developing prudential expertise in work teams in

high-risk jobs.

Job retention for older workers and extension of

professional activity under good conditions through internal mobility or mentoring assignments.

Integrating new employees, whether professionals in

the fi eld or not, ensuring individual development, and preventing job attrition.

Seeking out better cooperation in work teams (age,

qualifi cation and gender mixes).

Issues in improving working conditions

What are the issues at stake for companies

and employees?

Performance-related issues

Companies are not necessarily aware of these issues and, when they are, do not always know how to facilitate the transfer of experiential knowledge. Some recommendations:

Call upon the assistance of a third-party to:

- identify the experiential knowledge that escapes the boundaries of the recommended activity;

- have the said knowledge formulated by those in possession of them; - provide all of the parties involved with the necessary tools:

experienced employee(s), learner(s), work teams, management. Launch explorations about the role of work teams where

performance, health preservation and skills-development are concerned and in facilitating the transfer of experiential knowledge

Key pointers

Developing and sustaining experiential knowledge has become a major issue for companies. They impact both overall performance and the ability to improve working conditions. A closer look

How to facilitate the transfer of experiential

knowledge

Where training is concerned, the idea is to institute training programmes in and through work, in relation with complex work situations where it is essential to mobilise experiential knowledge.

Through the training approaches adopted by the ANACT Network in its work with companies, two key success factors have emerged:

- the surrounding mobilisation and support provided to internal players: experienced worker(s), learner(s), work team(s), management.

- action to identify and arrange learning work situations. The learner must be placed in a position enabling him/her to analyse and solve problem situations with an experienced employee and, more broadly speaking, with the work team to which he belongs.

Where work organisation is concerned, certain work organisation processes and management methods are more conducive than others to the implementation of this type of approach. The role of work teams in carrying out activities, whether in terms of production effi ciency, health preservation or skills development is to be explored at the same time as specifi c experiential knowledge transfer approaches are instituted.

In taking up the issue of gaining and transferring experiential knowledge, companies are able to re-examine the connections between work and skills development, by addressing all modes of action.

Peer cooperation and mutual assistance

In relation to the work team

Self-sufficiency, initiative-taking and employee accountability at all levels Mobilising intelligence on the job

In relation to work organisation In relation to work content

Management attitudes and practices, team coordination In relation to management Professionalisation pathways In relation to HR management In relation to individual Self-determination

and experience-building processes

Modes of action for learning in the workplace

Developing experiential knowledge and making it more easily transferred requires a concurrent effort on training systems, work organisation and the group dynamics conducive to cooperation.

Which drivers should be used to act on the

organisation and on training?

Set up a system facilitating the transfer of experiential knowledge assumes an organisation that leaves individuals and teams some room for manoeuvre and the ability to show initiative and self-suffi ciency.

ACTION ON THE TRAINING PROCESSES ACTION ON WORK ORGANISATION

Support the transfer of experiential knowledge by instituting a special training system while also mobilising the relevant employees. The aim is to speed up an acquisition process which, without such support, might be lengthier and more unpredictable.

Facilitate cooperation, mutual assistance and method-sharing practices in work teams. The aim is to develop learning organisation conducive to health preservation and individual development throughout the organisation and, in particular, in newcomers.

1. Identify, with experienced employees, the critical work situations that put experiential knowledge to work, and appear conducive to learning.

2. Ensure that the skills to be gained indeed fall within the scope of experiential knowledge and that they can only be learned on the job.

3. Jointly draw up an action plan that identifi es critical work situations, plans out work periods and times between employees, the resources or conditions needed to enable training as well as the monitoring and assessment thereof.

4. Transferring experiential knowledge means doing the job together, not having the job done by another person or showing that person how it should be done. Employees must be put in a position to work together to solve all of their issues and devise well-suited responses together.

1. Draw upon a flexible and empowering work organisation

2. Foster the development of cooperation practices in work teams through:

- trust relationships within the work team and toward management,

- management practices that facilitate and encourage support, mutual assistance between peers and “teamwork”,

- time-spaces for talking about work and the diffi culties it holds.

3. Pay attention to work team membership

(skills, seniority, ages, and stability) and work allocation within the work team. For it is the work team as a whole that will determine whether new job practices and experiential knowledge are actually taken on board.

KE Y P R INC IP LES AC TI O N D R IV ER S

What kind of support does the network need?

several different players need to be mobilised to foster the transfer of experiential knowledge: Inside the companies: Executive Management, line management, experienced employee(s), work

team(s);

Outside the companies: OPCAs (vocational training fund collection agencies) and consultants.

The ANACT Network offers all of these players:

Information and consulting services to set up experiential knowledge transfer approaches and, more broadly speaking, develop learning organisations.

In-company opportunity and feasibility analysis to identify and transfer experiential knowledge. Support in executing company or division-wide plans related to building or transferring experiential

knowledge.

Training and methodology transfer to consultants or company players.

Taking it further: The FSE Racine Project

In order to promote approaches like these, aimed at facilitating the development and transfer of experiential knowledge, the ANACT Network has undertaken a partnership project

with the Labour Foundation of the University of Belgium, as part of an FSE Racine-funded effort. The project, carried out over Year 2009, has made it possible, through exchanges, study trips abroad and local coordination initiatives, has brought greater depth to our approach, in particular on the issue of prudential expertise.

Using this, we were able to carry out methodology transfers to consultants and OPCAs likely to provide tools and awareness-raising to the companies wishing to undertake such projects.

Helpful links:

http://www.itaque.eu/index.php: this consulting fi rm designed an experiential knowledge transfer approach now deployed in the cement, quarry (Forcemat OPCA) and cardboard (OPCA Formapap) industries.

The Labour Foundation of the University of Namur (www.ftu.be) and Agrosup Dijon (www.eduter.fr): partners to the FSE Racine project (www.racine.fr) on “ transferring experiential knowledge ”.

The French National Employment Plan for Older Workers (travail-solidarite.gouv.fr)

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