"When experienced employees leave-whether they get laid off, or jump ship for a better opportunity-they take their years, if not decades, of knowledge with them. Over time, the company loses that institutional knowledge.But what happens when a company excels at keeping its workers? Nintendo, the Japanese video game giant, is an example. Its Japanese employees spend an average of 15 years at the company, which boasts a yearly retention rate of 98%."
"There is a risk that companies that rely too much on institutional knowledge get stuck in their ways. Yet Nintendo, according to MacDonald, has combined institutional knowledge with fresh ideas to continuously replenish its pipeline of fun games: "It's not like the oldest guy gets to decide what's a good idea and what isn't. Everyone puts ideas in." Nintendo has its share of flops, failed experiments, and puzzling business decisions-as does every firm."
Nintendo's Japanese employees spend an average of 15 years at the company, producing a yearly retention rate of 98%. That tenure exceeds the Japanese national average of 11 years and far surpasses the U.S. average of about four years. The people who first made Nintendo's hits remain at the company and have passed down knowledge and trained new generations of creatives for decades. Corporate and creative leaders show long tenures: the current president joined in 1994 as an accountant, and Shigeru Miyamoto joined as a staff artist in 1977. The company pairs institutional knowledge with fresh ideas while accepting occasional flops.
Read at Fortune
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