Knowledge Transfer

What is Knowledge Transfer?

Knowledge transfer is the process of capturing what people know and passing it on to others who need it. At its core, it means taking the expertise inside someone's head and turning it into something useful for the next person, whether that's written documentation, training materials, or direct mentoring relationships.

This isn't the same as casually chatting about work over lunch. Knowledge transfer requires intention and structure to actually work. It becomes especially important during transitions: when someone leaves the company, retires, switches roles, or when you're bringing new team members up to speed. Studies suggest that doing this well can boost productivity by around 25% and cut employee turnover by roughly 35%. Those numbers alone explain why organizations take it seriously.

In 2025, knowledge transfer looks quite different than it did a decade ago. Simple documentation is no longer enough. Teams now use AI-powered tools, video walkthroughs, and interactive platforms to capture both the explicit stuff (like step-by-step procedures) and the tacit knowledge that's harder to articulate, such as judgment calls and experience-based insights. The shift has moved away from treating documentation as a one-time event toward building systems that continuously preserve what people know.

Key Characteristics of Knowledge Transfer

• Intentional Process: Both the person sharing knowledge and the person receiving it need to make a deliberate effort. You need clear goals and a structured approach, or things tend to fall through the cracks.
• Bidirectional Communication: Even though we often think of knowledge flowing in one direction, it works best when recipients ask questions and confirm they actually understand what's being transferred.
• Multiple Formats: Different types of knowledge call for different approaches. You might combine written documentation with mentoring, hands-on training, video tutorials, and job shadowing.
• Focus on Application: Sharing information isn't enough. The goal is making sure people can actually use what they've learned in their day-to-day work.
• Preservation of Tacit Knowledge: This is where things get tricky. You're not just capturing documented procedures, but also the unwritten insights and judgment calls, often called tacit knowledge, that experienced employees have developed over years.

Knowledge Transfer Examples

Example 1: Employee Departure Transition

A senior software engineer with a decade of domain expertise announces they're retiring. The company puts together a three-month knowledge transfer plan. It includes pair programming sessions with junior developers, video walkthroughs of the trickier systems, detailed documentation explaining why certain architectural decisions were made, and regular Q&A sessions. The engineer also documents common troubleshooting scenarios they've encountered over the years. The idea is to make sure the team doesn't lose all that hard-won expertise when the engineer walks out the door.

Example 2: Cross-Departmental Project Handoff

A marketing agency wraps up a successful campaign strategy for a retail client. Now the strategy team needs to hand things off to the execution team. They run knowledge transfer sessions covering market research findings, customer insights, creative rationale, and performance benchmarks. Everything gets documented in a playbook, key strategic decisions are explained in recorded videos, and templates are created for future similar campaigns. This serves as a knowledge base for the campaign. The execution team can then replicate what worked without needing to ask questions every step of the way.

Knowledge Transfer vs Knowledge Sharing

People use these terms interchangeably, but they're actually different things.

Types of Knowledge Transfer

Linear Knowledge Transfer

This is the simplest setup: one source, one recipient. Think of a departing employee training their replacement directly, or a subject matter expert mentoring someone new to the team. The one-on-one nature allows for deep, personalized transmission of knowledge. The recipient can ask detailed questions and get things clarified on the spot.

Divergent Knowledge Transfer

Here you have one source reaching multiple recipients. Training sessions where an expert teaches a group fall into this category. So do recorded video tutorials that many employees can access, or training documentation that an entire team will follow. This approach scales well when you need to spread knowledge across a larger audience.

Convergent Knowledge Transfer

This flips the script: one recipient pulls knowledge from multiple sources. A new manager, for instance, might learn from their predecessor, the HR department, the executive team, and peer managers all at once. Combining perspectives from different people creates a more well-rounded understanding of the role.

How Glitter AI Helps with Knowledge Transfer

Glitter AI makes it much easier to capture expertise before it walks out the door. Traditional knowledge transfer often fails because documenting complex processes takes forever, and writing detailed instructions feels like a chore. Glitter takes a different approach: experts simply perform their work once while the platform captures everything.

Using screen recording and AI-powered documentation, subject matter experts can complete a knowledge transfer in roughly the time it takes to do the task itself. The platform automatically captures screen actions, generates step-by-step instructions with screenshots, and creates video tutorials from a single recording. Departing employees can document years of expertise quickly. Trainers can build out materials without spending hours writing. Teams can preserve institutional knowledge before transitions happen, not after it's too late.