Knowledge retention during staff turnover

The employee leaves. Their knowledge stays.

We fight the loss of knowledge caused by staff turnover.*

Talk to us Calculate the benefit

* Around 1 million people in Germany reach statutory retirement age every year. Another 10 million leave their employer each year through staff turnover. Brainbox Re:vive helps in both cases.Source: Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis), 13.3 million by 2040

What’s pending

Identified from correspondence. 37 open items, 6 of them urgent.

  • Promisedurgent
    HydroTec price review by 1 July HydroTec GmbH · 9 Jan 2026

    Review promised, the costing is ready.

    done?
  • Waiting forurgent
    Approval documents for series H Materials Testing Institute · 12 May 2026

    Two certificates requested, due by the end of the month.

    done?
  • Promised
    Close complaint for batch 4471 Brandt Hydraulik · 18 Nov 2025 done?
All 37 open items

Who mattered

The contacts with the most correspondence.

People
Dr A. Hollmann 412 S. Albrecht 388 J. Röder 274 P. Nowak 196
Companies
HydroTec GmbH 2,140 Kranich Antriebstechnik 1,312 Brandt Hydraulik 984 Materials Testing Institute 611

What mattered

Supplier management Framework agreements Complaints Approvals
Example with fictional data

The situation

What a departure costs.

13.3 million
people in Germany’s workforce will reach statutory retirement age in the next 15 years.Federal Statistical Office of Germany, 2026
42%
of role-relevant knowledge exists only in the head of a single person.Panopto Workplace Knowledge Report
8 hrs
a week are lost by knowledge workers to searching and asking around.McKinsey
avg. €42,000
is the cost of lost knowledge and productivity per departing employee.Gallup, StepStone, Oxford Economics · How we calculate

Succession

What happens between farewell and handover.

  1. 1

    The employee leaves.

    An older person walks alone down a long colonnade

    8 years in purchasing. Farewell on Friday, successor on Monday.

  2. 2

    Their knowledge stays.

    • 61,540Emails
    • 3,804Files
    • 212Business contacts

    Everything is still there. In the mailbox, in shared folders, in conversation threads.

  3. 3

    But no one can make sense of it.

    The successor has access to everything and answers to nothing.

  4. 4

    Connections, not documents.

    Which is Carsten Kraus’s favourite hotel in Munich?

    164 candidates · 24 sources · 6.5 s

    The Livinghotel Prinzessin Elisabeth, ideally the two-storey “Prinzessin Suite”.

    Sources (24) · 2023 to 2026

    Re:vive shows who was in touch with whom about what: people, customers, suppliers, open tasks and projects in one picture.

Works retroactively

It works even after the person has left.

As long as the mailbox or a backup exists, the knowledge can be recovered.

Calculation

Work it out for your own case.

Preset: German average according to StepStone
Role of the person
from €42,000
Loss per departure

€52,300 average salary (StepStone) × 80% replacement cost (Gallup) = €41,840. Of this, according to Oxford Economics, 82.3% is lost productivity and 17.7% recruiting and onboarding.

Lost productivity until the successor is fully up to speed 82.3%€34,500
Recruiting, bridging and onboarding 17.7%€7,500
Per year with 2 departures: from €84,000

Sources: StepStone 2025, Gallup 2024, Oxford Economics 2014

How the figure is calculated

  1. Salary

    The starting point is the person’s annual salary. The preset is €52,300, the average salary in Germany.

    StepStone Salary Report 2025 (in German) ↗
  2. Cost of replacement

    What it costs to fill a position again: around 40% of annual salary for operational staff, 80% for specialist and technical roles, 200% for managers. Example: €52,300 × 80% = €41,840.

    Gallup 2024 ↗
  3. Lost productivity

    82.3% of these costs arise because the successor performs below full capacity until fully onboarded. The remaining 17.7% is recruiting, bridging and onboarding. Example: 82.3% of €42,000 = €34,500.

    Oxford Economics, The Cost of Brain Drain, 2014 ↗
  4. Projection

    Loss per departure × departures of key people per year, rounded to €500. Lost knowledge and customer relationships are not included.

Result

What Re:vive delivers

  1. 1

    Handover dossier

    What’s pending 37 open · 6 urgent
    Promisedurgent
    HydroTec price review by 1 July HydroTec GmbH · 9 Jan 2026
    Waiting forurgent
    Approval documents for series H Materials Testing Institute · 12 May 2026
    Who mattered
    Dr A. Hollmann 412S. Albrecht 388HydroTec GmbH 2,140

    Day one for the successor: what is pending, who mattered and which topics the work revolved around.

  2. 2

    Searchable knowledge

    Which commitments to HydroTec still apply?

    164 candidates · 24 sources · 6.5 s

    Two are open: a minimum purchase of 1,200 units for 2026 and the price review by 1 July.

    Note: An older email still mentions 1,000 units.

    Sources (24) · 2023 to 2026

    Ask questions as you would ask a colleague. Every answer comes with a source, contradictions are flagged.

  3. 3

    Contact database

    The network becomes visible. Every business partner with contacts and history.

Examples with fictional data

Your contacts

You talk to the people who run your project.

Carsten Kraus

Carsten Kraus

Entrepreneur, AI pioneer

Inventor and serial founder. While still at school he wrote Omikron BASIC; later he developed FactFinder, Europe’s market leader for product search in online retail. Today he holds 25 AI patents.

Christoph Augenstein

Christoph Augenstein

Business Development

The operational head of Re:vive. After several years in investment and start-ups, partly under Carsten Kraus, he now implements AI hands-on in mid-sized German companies.

Thomas Augenstein

Thomas Augenstein

Head of Sales Re:vive

Responsible for sales and partner management at Re:vive. He brings many years of sales experience and most recently ran a sales organisation as managing director.

Initial call

Tell us about your next handover.

How many key people will leave your company in the next 24 months? In 20 minutes we show you what Re:vive can preserve.

  • Reply within 24 hours
  • Your IT and data protection officer are welcome to join

Your data is treated confidentially and used only to get in touch with you.

FAQ

What decision-makers want to know.

Process and cost

How does a project work?
  1. Approval. Your IT grants access to the person’s mailbox and files, ideally from the backup. We provide the works agreement as a template.
  2. Preparation. Re:vive organises and links the content. We review sensitive material together with your HR department.
  3. Handover. The successor receives the dossier, searchable knowledge and the contact database. If you wish, we look after this on an ongoing basis, for every further departure.
How long does a project take?

Two to four weeks from approval to handover.

How much effort is it for us?

One approval, one meeting, one signature. We take care of the rest.

What if the employee has already left?

That is exactly what Re:vive is built for. As long as the mailbox, files or a backup exist, the knowledge can be recovered, regardless of how and when the person left.

What does Re:vive cost?

That depends on the volume of data and the scope. For context: the loss of knowledge and productivity per departing employee averages around €42,000. Re:vive costs considerably less. In the initial call we put together a fixed-price offer for the pilot.

Technology

Where is our data processed?

If you wish, entirely on your premises, on an appliance in your network. Alternatively in a German data centre with ISO 27001 certification.

Is any data sent to an external AI?

No. All AI models run locally; there is no external AI API in the processing path. Your data is never used for training, and we guarantee this contractually.

Who gets access?

Only the people you authorise through your existing Microsoft Entra groups. Content carries sensitivity levels. Our staff access data strictly on a need-to-know basis, and every access is logged.

Does our IT stay in control?

Yes. Every access is logged and your IT has a kill switch. If you leave, we export everything in open formats and delete it with proof.

Data protection and works council

Which data is processed?

Only business mailboxes and file storage without private use rights. No private accounts. Eleven protected categories are filtered out before processing and reviewed with your HR department.

Is anyone being monitored?

No. Monitoring of performance or behaviour is ruled out both technically and contractually. Access logs serve IT security only. This is set out in the works agreement.

We have a works council. What does that mean for the project?

That we involve it early. The works agreement is a standard part of our delivery, and we prepare the input for the data protection impact assessment.

How is the data deleted?

Your IT can delete the entire data set at any time, with proof. Processing takes place as commissioned data processing under Art. 28 GDPR.

How it differs

We have Microsoft 365 Copilot. Isn’t that enough?

Copilot is good for searching during day-to-day work. Re:vive is something else: a curated handover process that structures the knowledge of one individual. So the successor finds not only what that person knew, but also why they made their decisions.

And if you wish, Re:vive runs entirely in-house, even retroactively.