How to Avoid a Personnel Crisis When a Personnel Crisis Hits

When a company considers business continuity, usually that means disaster recovery, data storage and backup and protection against any cyberattack. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but what often gets overlooked is making sure there is a personnel business continuity plan in place to ensure business moves forward as seamless as possible when something happens to one or more employees.

Whenever an employee unexpectedly leaves—whether for good or for a short term—it causes stress on an organization. When there is stress on an organization, morale and customer service usually suffer. However, there are ways to avoid many unnecessary problems if you are running your business a certain way. This isn't something you can drill or prepare for; rather, it's about how you handle the day-to-day operations.

There are three major components critical to making sure all business transitions run smoothly when unexpected personnel situations arise, or simultaneous situations:

Transparency: The first critical component of establishing a nimble organization that responds well to diversity is transparency. While some information needs to be kept confidential, such as financial or human resources information, process information—who does what and how—does not. Everyone one on your team should know the expertise and workload of their co-workers. Not only does this create a more transparent and appreciated work environment, it prevents stone-throwing and provides everyone a clear understanding of their value and role. This way, when someone does leave unexpectedly, other employees already are familiar with the workload and have the opportunity to step up and negate the short-term pain.

Cross Training: Not only should everyone be fully aware of what their co-workers do, they also should be somewhat cross-trained. While being a product specialist or a subject matter expert is great for the individual, it's not as valuable to the enterprise as a whole. Managers should make sure all their employees have backup and can do each other’s job at a certain level, even if it’s not their primary responsibility. This protects the company from possible skill gaps and it helps employees grow by giving them more expertise and career options.

The Peter Principle, a management concept in which the selection of candidates for a position is based on their performance in their current role rather than on their abilities relevant to the intended role, is a failed approach. Prepare your employees beforehand for roles they may have to take on in the future.

Trust: The final component is trust. As a manager, you need the trust and support of your supervisors to execute projects when resources run unexpectedly low. You need to know you can make decisions on the fly for the short term while the longer-term strategy is being baked out. As a manager, you need to be able to trust your employees to step up when diversity hits and not micromanage them or expect them to do it the same exact way as the person who is no longer available. Without trust, both from the C-suite down to the operations level, a personnel crisis will become just that—a crisis.