Employment Staffing Strategies and their Implications for Knowledge Retention

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to highlight the implications of employment staffing strategies on organisations regarding the retention of operational relevant knowledge. The fact that institutions experience a loss of operational relevant knowledge can no longer be denied. Diverse challenges that lead to loss of operational knowledge include staff attrition challenges such as retirement, resignations, redundancies, political purging, lay-offs, and deaths. To mitigate these challenges, institutions need to devise mechanisms for retaining organisational knowledge including the choice of an appropriate staffing strategy. Using literature analysis, findings indicate that all employment staffing strategies have implications for knowledge retention. This paper proposes organisational interventions such as knowledge governance, knowledge management, human resource management, and information communication technology to help facilitate the retention of organisational operational relevant knowledge.