As an organization, you need to start making a plan on how to fill a vacant position that is coming up very soon. Technically, companies should be preparing for this type of situation all the time with cross-training, but one step at a time! Right now, an organization needs to determine when is this person going to retire and who will potentially take that place. Once this has occurred, you need to start part-time cross-training, even if it is for one hour a day. Add up one hour over 3-5 years, and you have a fully trained person to take over for the retired person. Second, you need to develop a software system that you can store knowledge from the retiring person. The most important aspect here is to make sure you understand the information that this person is giving and that others can understand it as well. How this person differentiates between right and wrong on a task can make a big difference for the next person. Make sure it applies to the task and that others understand it.
Hopefully this helps in a small way in preparing for people that are thinking about retiring in the future. If you need any help with this, feel free to reach out to us at Future To Now Consulting to get the conversation started.