Age-old questions 2

The imminent retirement of large numbers of staff from UK universities may well be a blessing for aspiring academics, but it comes with a sting in its tail.

These retiring staff will collectively take with them many hundreds of years of organisational experience and expertise, organisational history and the "true" story of how to get things done in a university.

Research at Westminster University's Business School has revealed how little most universities concern themselves with attempting to capture this knowledge before it walks out of the door and how few have put in place a risk-alleviation strategy. Many celebrate the fact that retiring staff mean smaller wage bills as these staff will typically be at the top of scale.

Additionally, some believe that older staff may be resistant to change and that young staff may be easier to mould into new ways of thinking and working.

Let us hope that the under-valued organisational knowledge that leaves with retiring staff does not lead to organisational and other failures through insufficient understanding of what makes each university a unique place to work.

Elayne Coakes
The Business, Information and Communication Research Cluster Westminster Business School