National Knowledge Management Research meeting "Made in Holland" (6)

Kees Vreugdenhil en Marijke Dieleman (Kenniskring Kennisorganisaties en Kennismanagement, Hogeschool Zuyd): Knowledge policy and sustainably continue (Dutch: “duurzaam doorwerken”) working in the mid-sized businesses in Parkcity Limburg

Parkcity Limburg (Limburg is a southern Dutch province, Parkcity is a group of cities in Limburg) is the first region in The Netherlands where ageing (“silver economy”) in the Mid-sized business is clearly hitting home hard. (90% of the employability in Parkcity is in Mid-sized businesses.)

Therefore a project was set up to develop and implement policies to address the loss of knowledge due to retirement, to develop and implement an HR policy to allow employees to continue working if they are able to and would like to. Their preliminary results are presented today.

They mention that what ‘graying’ really means, is not clear; we’re learning on the go. “The key is to use knowledge about age to manage it.” (Prof. Ilmarinen - He defined the 12 pillars describing what is important for employers; health, recognition, financial reward, situation at home, social contacts, etc.)

Two interesting findings from their surveys are:

Their survey results show that 49% of employees find that insufficient investment in knowledge retaining/storage is being done.

They learned that 4% of employees would like to continue working after they turn 65 (regular age of retirement in The Netherlands).

Information on this ongoing project can be found here.