Turning Attrition into Innovation: The Birth of a Corporate Wiki

Two Monks on a Motorcycle: Corporate Zen Stories

Day 14

In the fast-paced world of HR Shared Services, the challenges of attrition are all too familiar. In early 2000, I faced one such scenario as I led a team grappling with an exodus of talent to global capability centres. While replacing skill sets was relatively straightforward, the accumulated expertise and deep knowledge held by seasoned employees were irreplaceable.

New hires, though capable, struggled to match the proficiency of their predecessors, especially when handling unique cases and exceptions. With no knowledge repository in place, we found ourselves dealing with sagging employee satisfaction (ESAT) scores, drawn-out cycle times, and mounting frustration.

In the midst of this crisis, I realized that the solution didn’t require reinventing the wheel, but rather capturing what we already had—our collective experience. Necessity, indeed, is the mother of invention. I took a simple but effective approach: building an Excel tool to document every key learning, unique scenario, and exception handling that arose in our day-to-day work.

This humble initiative soon evolved. What started as an Excel sheet became a corporate work execution wiki, a centralized hub of knowledge accessible to the entire team. As employees began feeding into the system, it became a living, breathing tool, growing more robust with each contribution.

The results were immediate and impactful. The knowledge gap that once held back new hires started to close, workflows streamlined, and the ESAT scores rebounded. Attrition may have triggered the crisis, but it also spurred a culture of knowledge sharing and innovation within the team.

Ultimately, this initiative led to company-wide recognition for process innovation—a reminder that even in the face of challenges, simple solutions can drive profound change.

By fostering an environment where knowledge is preserved and shared, we not only mitigated the impact of attrition but also future-proofed our operations. This experience underscored a crucial lesson: the key to navigating transitions often lies in empowering people with the right tools to succeed.