What To Do When A Key Person Quits
By Richard Broudy, Contractor’s Business School
Dear Richard: I had a key employee quit and I'm scrambling. I don't know where she kept her notes or how she did anything so I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel. Meanwhile, my customers are angry because they're not getting the service they want. I've explained the situation, but they're not very sympathetic. I'm already working 18 hour days to try and fill the gap. What else can I do? - Rick
Dear Rick: To your customers, your problems are just that: your problems. Harsh, but true. How happy would you be if the mechanic called and said: "My lead guy just quit and it'll be an extra two weeks before your truck is done? If that's not okay, you can take it someplace else, but it's in pieces and I don't know what's been done or where the pieces are. Sorry."?
Not a way to build trust and confidence.
You're (hopefully) not responsible for an expected quit and they're inevitably disruptive when they happen, but you ARE responsible for having plans and systems in place so that the impact on your business and customers is minimized. And the impact can be greatly minimized with a few things that you build once and use forever.
Recently, one of my contractors had a key person (Ellen) quit on short notice. Randy the owner was frantic. Ellen left a full load of projects that had to be handled by someone immediately. Randy was already working too many hours himself, but had to take some of the work on anyway, and he had to stop doing the owner-level work he should be doing. On top of that, he had to find time to hire a replacement and do a solid hire, not a "whatever warm body is around" exercise.
Some of our work was assigned to Bob, and some of it simply stopped while Randy found and trained his new hire (I wasn't too happy, because now it was my truck in pieces). Unfortunately, as hard as Randy and Bob tried, balls started dropping. There was no way they couldn't drop because Randy hadn't created an Operations Manual for Ellen's position, so much of her detail knowledge left with her. Randy and Bob had general ideas about what Ellen was doing, but not the specifics of what had to happen when, nor exactly how to do it. So they had to recreate Ellen's job tasks with phone calls and trial-and-error and not surprisingly, they guessed wrong here and there and problems arose.
But it didn't have to be that way. Here's how to deal with employee turnover of any kind:
• Assume that people will leave: They quit, get fired, retire, and get hit by buses. To toddle along and think your workforce is permanent is silly.
• Have a plan: For every job in your company, figure out what you'll do if that employee quits tomorrow. Who'll cover which tasks, what will be deferred or outsourced, and how/where you'll source the replacement.
• Create Operations Manuals that contain clear, complete descriptions of all the tasks each job is responsible for, and a step-by-step checklist on how to perform them. That way, when somebody leaves, you have a document that another employee (or you, if need be) can follow and get the job done without missing things.
• Cross train: Each employee who'll take over a task when someone else quits needs a little training ahead of time. Like a fire drill. Have the receptionist do the invoicing every couple of months so she's familiar with it.
• The more important the position, the more critical to have it fully documented and backed up. Who would you be lost without? The more vital that person is, the more danger you're in until you get it on paper.
• Don't ignore your spouse if they're an employee. Their tasks need to be documented just like everybody else.
I've seen plenty of contracting businesses be severely hurt when a key employee quits because no one else could do their job. Worse, I've seen very successful ones go completely belly up when the owner gets sick or dies and hasn't created the documentation that would allow a family to take over and continue. Again, that's grim, but it's true. Without a systems-based business that can run without you, everything you work for can die with you and leave your family with nothing.
On the bright side, getting the Operations Manuals and cross training in place makes backfilling a key position a speedbump rather than a meltdown. Ops Manuals are also the basis for excellent job descriptions, which are the basis for getting well-matched new employees on board with the least hassle.
Finally, every position in your business is going to eventually be filled by someone new who'll need training. You can do that by taking a lot of time talking to them, demonstrating things, and only covering 75% of the tasks (because we never think of everything on the fly), or you can use the Ops Manuals to carefully capture everything their job requires and how to do it, give it to them, and let them train themselves almost entirely. That method is far more effective and takes way less time.
My best to you,
Richard
Contractor’s Business School® is a coaching, training and consulting firm specializing in helping contractors produce more profit in less time. Calling on experience dating back to 1993, the company has worked with hundreds of contractors in many specialty areas to build successful stand-alone businesses. Visit www.contractorsbusinessschool.com, or call (800) 527-7545 to get the FREE CD "10 Key Strategies to Build a Business that Works."
For more columns, click here.