Glossary

Glossary terms

Corporate amnesia

Corporate amnesia is the loss of organizational memory about past decisions, relationships, processes, and lessons. It occurs when useful knowledge is no longer available or understood after people leave, teams change, records disappear, or context is not transferred.

Employee attrition

Employee attrition is a reduction in workforce size when employees leave and their roles are not immediately replaced. The departure may be voluntary or involuntary, and the work may be removed, paused, or absorbed by the remaining team.

Employee onboarding

Employee onboarding is the structured process of helping a new employee join an organization, gain the required access and context, build working relationships, and become effective in their role. It begins before or on the start date and continues beyond initial orientation.

Employee turnover

Employee turnover is the number or rate of employees who leave an organization during a given period, usually where the organization expects to replace them. It can include voluntary departures and employer-initiated exits.

Exit interview

An exit interview is a structured conversation with a departing employee about their experience, reasons for leaving, and suggestions for the organization. Its purpose is to collect candid feedback and identify patterns that may improve retention, management, or workplace practices.

Handover

A handover is the transfer of work, responsibility, and practical context from one person or team to another. It should give the new owner enough information and access to continue the work without relying on the previous owner.

Handover process

A handover process is the planned sequence used to transfer responsibilities, knowledge, documents, and ownership to a new person or team. It turns a handover from a one-time document into a checked transfer of work.

Institutional knowledge

Institutional knowledge is the accumulated understanding of how an organization works, why past decisions were made, and how work gets done in practice. It exists across people, documents, systems, routines, and working relationships.

Key-person risk

Key-person risk is the operational exposure created when important work depends too heavily on one individual's knowledge, access, authority, or relationships. Their departure or absence can delay work, weaken decisions, interrupt service, or make critical context unavailable.

Knowledge loss

Knowledge loss happens when useful expertise, context, or organizational memory becomes unavailable to the people who need it. Employee departures are a common cause, but knowledge can also be lost through poor documentation, inaccessible systems, restructuring, and simple disuse.

Knowledge retention

Knowledge retention is the practice of preserving critical organizational knowledge so other people can find, understand, and use it over time. It combines knowledge capture, transfer, ownership, storage, maintenance, and practical verification.

Knowledge silo

A knowledge silo exists when useful information or expertise is confined to one person, team, or system and is difficult for others to access or apply. The knowledge may be documented, but it is still siloed if the people who need it cannot find, understand, or use it.

Knowledge transfer

Knowledge transfer is the deliberate movement of useful expertise, context, and working methods from one person or group to another. It can use documents, demonstrations, conversations, shadowing, practice, and feedback to make knowledge usable beyond its original owner.

Offboarding

Offboarding is the structured process an organization uses to manage an employee's departure. It covers the administrative, security, communication, and knowledge-transfer work needed to end employment and reassign responsibilities.

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge is practical know-how gained through experience that is difficult to explain fully in rules or documents. It includes judgment, pattern recognition, intuition, relationships, and the small adjustments people make while doing real work.