This does not appear to be about encoding but about the identity of a character. To determine the Unicode code number (code point) of a character, place the cursor right after it (i.e. click on the location between it and the next character), then press AltX. This replaces the character by its hexadecimal four- or five-digit Unicode number. You can undo the change with CtrlZ as usual.
If AltX causes no change, then the symbol is not a character at all but an internal code of Word, just displayed graphically. For example, in the “Show All” mode Word shows a hyphenation hint as “¬”, but it’s not really any character.
Update. As I say in my answer to the other formulation of this problem at StackOverflow, the things here is not really a character by the special code Nonbreaking Hyphen in Word. It looks like a hyphen, prevents line break after it, and turns to a space if copied and pasted as plain text.