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CHAPTER 11
Maintaining senior employment: some lessons from best practices in France 217

and security needed to look ahead to a different future. It is also a sign of
the companyʼs recognition for the employee;
(b) importance that needs to be given to the programme before signing on.
With the pharmaceutical company, group information sessions instituted
when the system was launched and offered to all participants at the first
meeting, seem to have played an important part. Run by an external
expert, they made it possible, through interaction between employees, to
reassure and, in some cases, defuse their fears about the system;
(c) importance of interaction between the programme and the work environment.
In this case, lack of thinking about what kind of opportunities may be offered
to manual workers might disappoint them and discredit the whole approach.

11.4.2.3. The granule mining company example: guidance to pass
on experience
The company and the programme
A few years ago, this 70-employee granule mining company found itself facing
many unforeseen departures in the ranks of its most experienced employees.
Over a period of three years, 80% of the extraction staff changed, shaking the
company to its foundations. In this industry, where there is little vocational
training and where skills develop first and foremost through hands-on
experience, know-how of senior staff was suddenly lacking and the company
had trouble hiring and building loyalty in its new staff.
The company had an opportunity to set up a tailor-made system adapted
to its characteristics. Spearheaded by a consultant, the approach was built
around ensuring skills transfer from senior employees to less-experienced
ones and new recruits. It gave priority to skills gained through experience,
such as operating movements, sensitivity to the product, tips and pointers –
all of which are difficult to consider in reference bases on employee activities
and skills. It was built on a methodology involving several different stages:
(a) opportunity diagnosis: broaching issues, measuring feasibility of
embarking on a system easing transfer of experiential knowledge
(conditions needed, prerequisites);
(b) identifying critical experience-based know-how: identifying the activities
where proficiency can only be achieved through experience, analysing
their degree of criticality (strategic, influence of experience, risk of loss,
lack of existing training), choosing tutors and identifying potential
beneficiaries;
(c) mobilising players in the system (mentors, trained personnel,
management) and training those transferring knowledge: getting