Many staff have knowledge which is essential to their company. So what can business do to avoid losing that expertise when staff leave, and to dissuade employees from keeping their knowledge to themselves in the face of possible job cuts?
许多员工有一些对他们公司非常重要的知识。因此当员工离职时，公司能做什么可以避免员工离职时失去这种专业知识，并且能劝阻员工在可能的裁员时不要把这些之知识藏起来。
First, they need to recognise the problem. A downturn in the economy exposes many companies' lacking of commitment to understanding and using their people's knowledge.** When companies feel they're in a crisis, it is one of the things that goes by the board.** Unless, that is, they've made it a routine or suffered because of losing knowledge in the past.
首先，他们需要认识到这个问题。 经济的衰退暴露了许多公司缺乏理解和利用员工知识的承诺。当公司觉得他们陷入了危机，这是一个董事会需要做的事情之一. 除非，也就是说，他们已经把它变成了一种习惯或者在过去因为失去痛苦过。
Next, any attempt to stop knowledge walking out of the door must be handled sensitively. Launching a knowledge-sharing initiative at a time when people are expecting redundancies would not be a good idea. Employees would be extremely cynical and see it as an attempt to extract their unique knowledge, which they believe gives them job security.
接下来，任何阻止知识流失的措施都应该非常谨慎的处理。在员工期望裁员的时候启动一项知识共享的措施可能不是一个好注意。 员工可能会相当的愤世嫉俗，并把这个看作是企图夺去他们独有的知识的企图，他们认为这些知识给他们带来了工作的安全感。
Strong incentives are needed to coax people into divulging their expertise when being dismissed.The price may be an increase in their redundancy package, provision of career counselling, or an agreement to hire them back as consultantsAt first sight, this might seem excessive, but the disadvantages should be weighed against the benefits.
当员工被解雇时，需要强有力的激励措施来诱使他们透露自己的专业知识。在他们离职的赔偿计划可能会增加一些费用，提供职业咨询，或者一个雇佣他们作为公司顾问的协议。咋一看，这似乎有些过分，但应该权衡利弊。
Of course, not all knowledge can be captured by the organisation and turn into a process. Because of the difficulty of achieving this, it is far better not to lose the valuable source of knowledge at all To find out who these "knowledge hotspots" are, companies need to question their staff and analyse their social networks. Companies shouldn't ask employees what they know, but who they would ask if they wanted to know about different subjects. This approach enable them to identify those with a limited number of network relationships And, more importantly, the process reveals the others who always know somebody who knows.
当然，不是所有的知识都能被公司获取并能把它转变成一个流程。因为获取这一目标非常困难，所以做好不要失去宝贵的知识来源。为了找到这些"知识焦点"是谁，公司需要问他们的员工并且研究分析他们的社交网络。公司不应该问员工他们知道什么，而应该问他们如果他们想要知道一些不同的主题时他们会去问谁。这个方法能够辨别出那些有限数量的网络关系的人. 并且，更重要的是，这个过程透露了其他的总是知道谁知道的人。
The latter can be high on the list for redundancy because manager are unsure what they do, or because they appear to be weak performers.But a "knowledge-mapping" exercise might reveal that they play a critical role as mentors to the rest of the team. People like this are often not ambitious but they can hold a company together. The most valuable knowledge is often not possessed by the people who seem to be star performers.
后者可能会在裁员名单的最上面因为管理者不能确定他们做了什么，或者他们表现不佳。但是"知识图谱"的练习可能透露了他们作为团队其他成员的导师起着关键的作用. 员工通常喜欢这些没有雄心壮志的人，但是这些人却能把公司团结在一起。 最有价值的知识往往不是那些明星员工拥有的。
If those at the centre of knowledge networks come to be seen as the most valuable people, those who keep their knowledge to themselves will look vulnerable when downsizing is deemed necessary.Organisations reward people for sharing knowledge will know who falls into each of these two opposing categories. In such companies, the incentive to share knowledge should be even greater when job are under threat.
如果这些知识网络中心的人被看作成是最有价值的人，那么当裁员认为是必须的时候，那些把保守自己知识的人将会表现的特别脆弱。公司奖励分享知识的行为将知道谁属于这两个不同类别的人。 在这样的公司里，当工作收到威胁时候，分享知识的动力应该更加强烈。
For some companies, it may be too late to salvage important knowledge. Building a culture where knowledge is understood, valued and shared can take a long time. Now may be the time to prepare for the next downturn.
对于一些公司来说，挽救重要的知识可能为时已晚。建立一种理解，重视和分享知识的文化需要很长的时间。现在也许是时候为下一次的经济衰退做准备了。
