Knowledge Management Challenges

A large proportion of the people who join English Nature are passionate about wildlife and conservation. Most staff join as graduates and go on to develop a long service record within the organisation. Currently there are pockets of staff in the same age cohort (50+) who will all potentially retire around the same time.

The organisation has a history, documented in recently unearthed oral history records, of apprenticeship schemes whereby novices learnt about conservation by working alongside experienced conservation officers.

Unlike in other organisations, ICT is not one of the main tools that conservation officers working in the local teams use as part of their day-to-day work. Thus from a knowledge management perspective ICT wasn’t perceived as being one of the main enablers for facilitating knowledge sharing, as is often the case in other organisations. However, the organisation does have a limited experience of using oral history techniques and isolated experiences of what they now refer to as campfire storytelling, among its local conservation teams. It was felt that this expertise, which is currently much under-utilised, has potential to be further developed.