Employee Turnover and Knowledge Management in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Knowledge economy regards employee knowledge as a most important asset. It is a priority task to ensure systematic knowledge continuity of those employees who are the holders of critical knowledge. The aim of the article is to analyse the causes of mobility of knowledge workers and categorise types of employees and mobility according to the future development of an employee’s career. The research areas, i.e. ensuring knowledge continuity and employee turnover were analysed based on the premise of significant relation between those two areas. The data were collected in organizations in the Czech Republic. Surveys were drawn across sectors to ensure representativeness of the outcomes. The outputs revealed two basic approaches to maintaining knowledge inside organizations. Employees can be divided into knowledge workers and remainder, who seek only security. A knowledge worker who decides to transfer is not motivated by the amount of salary (they do not mind a lower level of remuneration); on the contrary they suffer due to an unclear vision on the part of the organization, where they used to work; they cannot stay in conditions where there is no possibility to participate on personal growth. Future research in this area should focus on the return of investments in the knowledge and employee learning, training and retention.

Keywords

• knowledge
• knowledge continuity
• employee turnover
• causes of employee turnover
• organizations
• competitive advantage