Very few businesses can claim to be prepared for the loss of key staff. Quite often it is an unexpected and unplanned for event that causes quite a bit of disruption to business as usual.

It is quite a gut wrenching experience to see someone you have worked with over a period of time leaving your business. Even if the parting of ways is on good terms with a period of handover, you just know that there is so much information walking out the door with your former employee and there is nothing you can do about it.

And this is only just the beginning...

While labouring through a period of being understaffed and overworked you are then faced with the task of recruiting a new employee to fill the vacant position. This is followed by the inevitable probation and training period where, hopefully the new recruit comes up to speed and is able to pick up where the former employee left off.

The problem is: What exactly was it that the former employee really did? They always seemed to be busy and on the rare occasion that they were absent due to illness, there were those problems that arose that were only truly resolved when they returned and took control and 'cleaned things up'.

There has to be a better way...

Fortunately quite a bit can be done to minimize the impact of situations like this in our businesses. And like most truly worthwhile solutions the steps required to complete this part of your businesses development do take some effort on your part.

There is an established path that you can follow to get your business in order and the benefits to you and your people are much farther reaching than just minimizing the impact of key staff leaving you.

The following is by no means a definitive list of what is required. But it does give you some idea of the steps required.

- Create a flexible forward thinking Organization Chart defining the positions you require in your business.
- Determine what the responsibilities are for the positions in your business.
- Document key information that is critical to your business and make it available to your employees.
- Work with your people to define what it is they do, how they do it and most importantly how it could be done better. Record, optimize then implement the business systems you have identified.
- Assign the business systems to the relevant positions and monitor their use.

By consistently following these steps for all positions in your business you will insulate yourself from some of the problems that occur when key employees leave your business.

Copyright 2006 Business Systems Manager