This paper examines KBR Australia's knowledge management (KM) and succession planning strategy following the company's separation from Halliburton in 2007. Drawing on frameworks for high performance organizations, the paper evaluates KBR's existing training categories, career-path-based succession model, and transferable competencies across technical and managerial domains. It identifies gaps in the current strategy and recommends incorporating a formal talent management plan — including workforce profiling, demand forecasting, and external labor supply analysis — to better align human resource development with organizational needs. The analysis applies theory from Bagorogoza and Waal (2010) and Banham, McDonald, and Wisner (2007) to propose a more competitive and sustainable KM succession framework.
Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) is an international company founded by Brown and Root in 1960 as Kinhill Engineers, and has undergone various changes over the years. A significant chapter in its history occurred in 2007, when it was split from Halliburton to become a fully independent company. KBR's Australian division has offices in Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Gold Coast, and various project offices. This network is served by over 2,000 employees and more than 370 active contractors. The company is a major engineering services and construction firm offering support to the energy, hydrocarbon, government, and civil infrastructure sectors (Halliburton Corporate Sustainability Report, 2006). The focus of this paper is the company's knowledge management (KM) and succession planning strategy.
This analysis is necessary because KBR's KM strategy was redesigned in 2006, following its separation from Halliburton. The policy was implemented in 2007 and was designed to establish criteria for ensuring the transfer of knowledge and the planning of local succession (Halliburton Corporate Sustainability Report, 2006). The current KM and succession strategy is based on this policy, which also describes the creation of new multipurpose facilities for managerial and technical training. Training is offered in five categories: technical excellence focus, location-based, internal, online KBR training, and lunch-and-learn sessions. A survey carried out by the Energy Services Group in 2006 showed that employee training hours had increased by 10.7% in 2006 compared to 2005, following the inception of the program (as indicated in Table 3, Appendix I).
In addition, the company identified a need to develop strong, innovative leaders for its future success by creating the President's Leadership Excellence Program (Halliburton Corporate Sustainability Report, 2006). The succession strategy entails clearly defined career paths, which management uses alongside performance management initiatives to expand employee retention programs. The goal of this succession strategy is to encourage goal setting and gauge competitive compensation and progress among employees (Halliburton Corporate Sustainability Report, 2006).
According to Bagorogoza and Waal (2010), "KM entails knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and responsiveness to knowledge for greater high performance organization." High performance management was described by Banham, McDonald, and Wisner (2007) as the set of management actions that improve employee relations through employee participation and involvement, which in turn improves organizational performance and profitability through consultation and communication between employees and management. Based on this definition, Bagorogoza and Waal (2010) and Banham, McDonald, and Wisner (2007) recommend that high performance organizations can be achieved when management links human resource management practices with performance outcomes. To transform KBR into a high performance organization, its management should develop a high performance organization (HPO) framework comprising HR activities that focus on knowledge management in order to gain a competitive advantage.
Based on this theory, it is evident that following the 2007 separation, KBR's KM succession strategy needs to address several HR issues to achieve competitiveness. KBR must develop its KM approach around knowledge dissemination, knowledge acquisition, and responsiveness to knowledge. Knowledge, in this context, implies the set of insights, technologies, products, markets, customers, processes, and competitive intelligence that leads to effective action (Bagorogoza & Waal, 2010).
Analyzing KBR's transferable competencies, it is clear that its training strategy incorporates various types of knowledge associated with the broad categories of communication, empowerment, strategic process thinking, business process thinking, leadership, commercial acumen, and quality, health, safety, and environment. Given that KBR is an engineering firm, there is a particular need for the HR department to develop a KM strategy for the transfer of technical and tacit knowledge among its consultants and engineers. According to Bagorogoza and Waal (2010), an effective KM strategy is realized when an organization is able to make use of its knowledge resources and intellectual capital to achieve high performance. Since technical expertise forms the basis of KBR's engineering and construction business, it should be a primary transferable competency within the KM strategy.
"KBR's five job-level succession and training structure"
"Proposed talent management and demand forecasting additions"
This analysis finds that KBR's KM and succession strategy, while founded on a solid training and career-path framework, requires the addition of a formal talent management plan to achieve long-term competitiveness. By integrating workforce profiling, demand forecasting, and external labor supply analysis into its existing strategy, KBR can better align human resource development with organizational goals, ensure effective knowledge transfer, and sustain high performance across its Australian operations.
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