Operations

Knowledge Retention Playbook for Field Teams Facing Workforce Contraction

How operations leaders can capture expert know-how before retirement cliffs create execution risk.

Human-approved by Steve on 22/02/2026

The real risk

Most teams think the risk is staffing numbers. The bigger risk is losing context and decision heuristics that senior operators carry in their heads.

A lightweight retention model

  • Record weekly “decision debriefs” from senior staff
  • Build role-based runbooks with real scenarios
  • Pair junior staff on live incident reviews

KPI to watch

Track “time-to-independent-execution” for new team members. If it drops, your knowledge transfer system is working.