As you know, Inga has proposed that we establish a primary role for her in marketing...

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As you know, Inga has proposed that we establish a primary role for her in marketing as the lead for the webstore and redistribute her other responsibilities to new employees. Easy Chair has been experiencing strong internet growth with most of our revenue coming from individual buyers vice large companies or distributors, and it is important that we have the right number of employees in place to properly manage the website and any customer relations issues. Despite the rapid growth, Inga has continued to manage all customer relations as well as the webstore and is one of our top producing employees. Allowing Inga the ability to focus on the webstore will allow us to continue expanding and growing while creating some duplication within the company's workforce. To do this we will need to hire at least two additional employees to cover the customer relations department, and one to improve our IT department. During this shift we must ensure there is a solid transition plan in place to minimize the impact of Inga's move and the onboarding of new employees. Background Inga currently manages all customer relations for Easy Chair. She is a high performing employee and is the only one that manages the online and customer relations department for Easy Chairs. Inga has requested additional employees to take over the customer relations department. Giving Inga additional employees to mange customer relations and online returns will give Easy Chair a backup in case something happens to Inga or one of her other employees and allow her to make additional improvements to the webstore as the company expands while ensuring we maintain a high level of customer service. While there are many positives to this plan, we must ensure that there is a smooth transition by ensuring knowledge is properly captured and stored, and that we hire personnel with the appropriate knowledge base. Since Inga has been the only person running the webstore and handling customer relations for Easy Chair Inga has an exceptional amount of explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is information that is easy to formalize, share and quantify; whereas tacit knowledge is more informal and difficult to quantify as it is the information gathered from experience (Beckman, 1998). Tacit knowledge is the type of knowledge that we will be unable to completely retain when we transition certain tasks from Inga to the new employees, however putting Inga in a leadership position over the new employees will allow her to mentor and pass on experience to them. Having a good knowledge management transition plan will also ensure we mitigate the loss of Inga's explicit knowledge. Creating a formal transition plan with clear processes, checklists and templates will give Inga and others a clear guide for what is expected regarding Knowledge Management (Cancialosi, 2021). Easy Chairs should begin by looking into procuring a knowledge management system that can be used to store and share information. A knowledge management system will reduce the negative impacts of employee turnover, promote teamwork and collaboration, and minimize mistakes often made by new employees (KM Institute, 2017). Putting a company policy together for knowledge management and purchasing a knowledge management system for the company will help reduce any issues that may arise from transferring responsibilities from Inga to the new employees as well as create a solid process for knowledge management and employee turnover in the future. To ensure a smooth transition we should hire a minimum of two employees to take on the task of customer relations, and another for our IT department. With the continued internet growth, I expect the workload of these positions to continue to grow. Hiring two employees to take on a customer relations role will ensure we have duplication and will allow them to be cross trained in case someone is out of the office or leaves the company (Cancialosi, 2014). Ensuring there is a backup in case someone is out critical to ensuring we maintain high levels of customer service for our customers. With the continued internet growth, we should also hire another IT employee to assist our already understaffed IT department. This person can also assist with our new knowledge management system. Lastly, it is critical that we ensure proper training is provided to the new employees. As the company continues to grow, we will continue to hire more personnel for our customer relations and webstore departments. Ensuring we have formal processes and provide adequate training will ensure that we are effectively transferring knowledge and setting them up for success (Cancialosi, 2014). Ensuring training for our new knowledge management system must also be provided as new employees come on board so we can ensure they know how to use the system properly. Actions Request Recommend we proceed with Inga's request to hire new employees for the customer relations department and begin putting a knowledge management/transition plan in place as soon as possible. Promote Inga to Human Resources/Webstore and Customer Relations team lead. The following actions/milestones must be taken. 1. Human Resources and Inga must work together to Identify key requirements and post job solicitations and hire new IT and customer relations positions 90-120 days 2. The Chief Operations Officer must work together with the IT department to identify a knowledge management system to be procured by easy chair and ensure a training and systems management plan is put in place. 3. Develop a knowledge management transition plan for Easy Chairs with templates, guidance, and checklists. 4. Develop training for new customer relations employees to improve confidence and minimize loss of knowledge. As you know, Inga has proposed that we establish a primary role for her in marketing as the lead for the webstore and redistribute her other responsibilities to new employees. Easy Chair has been experiencing strong internet growth with most of our revenue coming from individual buyers vice large companies or distributors, and it is important that we have the right number of employees in place to properly manage the website and any customer relations issues. Despite the rapid growth, Inga has continued to manage all customer relations as well as the webstore and is one of our top producing employees. Allowing Inga the ability to focus on the webstore will allow us to continue expanding and growing while creating some duplication within the company's workforce. To do this we will need to hire at least two additional employees to cover the customer relations department, and one to improve our IT department. During this shift we must ensure there is a solid transition plan in place to minimize the impact of Inga's move and the onboarding of new employees. Background Inga currently manages all customer relations for Easy Chair. She is a high performing employee and is the only one that manages the online and customer relations department for Easy Chairs. Inga has requested additional employees to take over the customer relations department. Giving Inga additional employees to mange customer relations and online returns will give Easy Chair a backup in case something happens to Inga or one of her other employees and allow her to make additional improvements to the webstore as the company expands while ensuring we maintain a high level of customer service. While there are many positives to this plan, we must ensure that there is a smooth transition by ensuring knowledge is properly captured and stored, and that we hire personnel with the appropriate knowledge base. Since Inga has been the only person running the webstore and handling customer relations for Easy Chair Inga has an exceptional amount of explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is information that is easy to formalize, share and quantify; whereas tacit knowledge is more informal and difficult to quantify as it is the information gathered from experience (Beckman, 1998). Tacit knowledge is the type of knowledge that we will be unable to completely retain when we transition certain tasks from Inga to the new employees, however putting Inga in a leadership position over the new employees will allow her to mentor and pass on experience to them. Having a good knowledge management transition plan will also ensure we mitigate the loss of Inga's explicit knowledge. Creating a formal transition plan with clear processes, checklists and templates will give Inga and others a clear guide for what is expected regarding Knowledge Management (Cancialosi, 2021). Easy Chairs should begin by looking into procuring a knowledge management system that can be used to store and share information. A knowledge management system will reduce the negative impacts of employee turnover, promote teamwork and collaboration, and minimize mistakes often made by new employees (KM Institute, 2017). Putting a company policy together for knowledge management and purchasing a knowledge management system for the company will help reduce any issues that may arise from transferring responsibilities from Inga to the new employees as well as create a solid process for knowledge management and employee turnover in the future. To ensure a smooth transition we should hire a minimum of two employees to take on the task of customer relations, and another for our IT department. With the continued internet growth, I expect the workload of these positions to continue to grow. Hiring two employees to take on a customer relations role will ensure we have duplication and will allow them to be cross trained in case someone is out of the office or leaves the company (Cancialosi, 2014). Ensuring there is a backup in case someone is out critical to ensuring we maintain high levels of customer service for our customers. With the continued internet growth, we should also hire another IT employee to assist our already understaffed IT department. This person can also assist with our new knowledge management system. Lastly, it is critical that we ensure proper training is provided to the new employees. As the company continues to grow, we will continue to hire more personnel for our customer relations and webstore departments. Ensuring we have formal processes and provide adequate training will ensure that we are effectively transferring knowledge and setting them up for success (Cancialosi, 2014). Ensuring training for our new knowledge management system must also be provided as new employees come on board so we can ensure they know how to use the system properly. Actions Request Recommend we proceed with Inga's request to hire new employees for the customer relations department and begin putting a knowledge management/transition plan in place as soon as possible. Promote Inga to Human Resources/Webstore and Customer Relations team lead. The following actions/milestones must be taken. 1. Human Resources and Inga must work together to Identify key requirements and post job solicitations and hire new IT and customer relations positions 90-120 days 2. The Chief Operations Officer must work together with the IT department to identify a knowledge management system to be procured by easy chair and ensure a training and systems management plan is put in place. 3. Develop a knowledge management transition plan for Easy Chairs with templates, guidance, and checklists. 4. Develop training for new customer relations employees to improve confidence and minimize loss of knowledge.