Your Knowledge Is Walking Out the Door: How to Capture It Before Your Experts Retire

Every workplace has at least one person who knows everything. They've been there since the company’s first logo was designed in Microsoft Paint. They know which machine needs a “gentle tap” to start. They can name every undocumented step between steps 4 and 5 in your SOP.

And now… they’re retiring.

Cue the collective panic.

The Knowledge You Can’t Afford to Lose

Institutional knowledge isn’t written down—it lives in people’s heads. It’s the “why” behind the “how.” When your seasoned experts walk out the door, they take years of shortcuts, workarounds, and insights that no manual currently explains.

Without a plan to capture that knowledge, companies face:

• Reinvented wheels: Teams waste time rediscovering how things work.

• Training slowdowns: New hires take months to get up to speed.

• Process errors: Small details get lost, creating big compliance gaps.

• Support calls galore: Because no one remembers the real way it’s done.

Sound familiar😶?

Step 1: Start with a Knowledge Capture Plan

Don’t wait for a farewell party. Identify critical roles and processes now. A structured plan should include:

• Key processes: What can’t run without this person’s knowledge?

• Dependencies: Who else relies on their expertise?

• Formats: Should the info live in SOPs, training materials, or process maps?

A professional technical writer can help by interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs), documenting their insights, and structuring them into accessible, maintainable content.

Step 2: Translate Knowledge into Tangible Documents

Experts often explain things using phrases like “You’ll know when it’s right”. A technical writer’s job? To translate that into measurable, repeatable steps that make sense to everyone.

From work instructions to process guides, a trained technical writer can take hands-on expertise and turn it into something that even a brand-new employee can follow, without a crash course from Carl in maintenance.

Step 3: Build It Into Training (and Keep It Fresh)

Once the knowledge is captured, the next step is to turn it into training content: eLearning modules, onboarding programs, or visual aids that make learning fast and retention easy.

This is where Training Developers shine. They take the documented knowledge and turn it into interactive learning experiences your team will actually use (and maybe even enjoy).

Better yet, these materials can be updated easily when processes evolve, so you’re not locked into “Version 1.0, written during the (first) Bush administration.”

Step 4: Keep the Knowledge Flowing

Knowledge capture shouldn’t be a one-time project. It’s a culture. Encourage your teams to:

• Document small improvements as they go.

• Share lessons learned after projects.

• Keep content stored in one centralized, searchable place.

And if your people are too busy to write it down? That’s exactly why Writer Resource exists.

Before You Lose Another Expert…

The best time to document knowledge was yesterday. The second-best time is today. Whether it’s a retiring engineer, a veteran nurse educator, or your lone software wizard, Writer Resource can help you turn knowledge into organized, accessible documentation and training that keeps your operations running smoothly, no matter who’s on the team.

Writer Resource: Technical Writing | Medical Writing | Training Development | Editing www.writerresource.com