What Happens When An Essential Employee Goes Missing?

As a business owner, you’d be tempted to argue that everyone is crucial to day-to-day operations. In reality, some people may sit at the heart of important activities, such as your top salesperson or even yourself, the entrepreneur, and may be tough to replace smoothly and rapidly. 

While no business wants to think about the worst possible situation, preparing a plan B means you are better equipped to deal with problems, should they occur. You may be hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst with a key employee disability policy, for example, can save you a lot of stress and hassle. 

But what else can you do when your business star is unavailable for the time being? 

Identify who can replace them

Knowledge sharing is an essential part of day-to-day work. The last thing a company needs is to be left unable to cope when someone goes missing because nobody knows about their work. Therefore, sharing tacitly or explicitly information, data, and best practices fosters the right mindset from the start. 

It can be helpful to create a space where people can safely share and exchange knowledge, such as through meetings but also by storing documents on the intranet. 

Essential employees must make sure to keep assistants or co-workers in the loop during projects, so someone can take over in case of problems. Regular catch-ups can also help keep people informed of progress, strategies, and eventual obstacles. 

Save your resources and outsource

Think of it as teamwork. You can save valuable time and effort by outsourcing simple tasks so your team can focus on the projects that need to be run. Suppose your marketing director is incapacitated. Outsourcing low-cost digital marketing activities can help the marketing team concentrate on more crucial tasks and bring these to completion. 

It’s important to re-assign tasks rapidly and effectively when projects need to change hands. During the process, team members are likely to face new challenges as they will be working on new tasks they have not managed before. Therefore, the sooner you can free up enough time through outsourcing for them to learn and get up to speed, the better your business will be able to handle the absence of a key person.  

Reach out to a business consultant

Business consultants act as ad-hoc strategists who can point you in the right direction. When an essential employee is unable to fulfill their roles, an external pair of eyes can help you rewire your operations and strategies effectively. 

Indeed, with the support of a consultant, you may realize that a change of direction would be more beneficial. It can be tough to replace expert knowledge on the spot. But you can expand and seize new meaningful opportunities that the business would have otherwise ignored. After all, when replacing is not an option, capitalizing on the existing strengths available could be the best solution for the time being. This could affect your overall business strategy, day-to-day operations, or even growth plans. 

The key persons in the company are typically involved in essential decisions and operations. So, if they go missing, the business must be able to bounce back and continue its activities safely. In other words, having a plan B and being reactive can be a life savior!