Eliminate risky single-person dependencies in your organisation.
Do the key people in your business have others trained and ready that they can delegate to and rely on to take over if necessary?
Consider the 23rd of October 2011: Eden Park, the Rugby World Cup final. Aaron Cruden is starting as fly half—already the third choice for that position after injuries to Dan Carter and Colin Slade. He hyper-extends his knee, and Stephen Donaldson comes on in the famous too-small shirt to make a successful penalty kick and win the match.
The depth of the All Blacks side certainly came through for them that day. And your company will benefit from a strong reserve bench too!
Owners, managers, and leaders in any organisation often find that they hold sole responsibility for an important part of the operations, with no-one else able to tag in. This can lead to stress, burnout, and reduced productivity. Workplace planning allows your organisation to identify and mitigate this and other important issues, and the start of a new financial year is a great time to put plans in place!
The risks of single-person dependencies
Being the only person in the company who can do a certain important task might be good for the ego, but in the long run it can be harmful to both the person in question and the business as a whole. When any part of your operations are dependent on a single person, you risk:
- Operational disruptions and backlogs when that person is out of action for any reason.
- Financial losses caused by the above.
- Difficulties filling critical roles when necessary.
- Reduced productivity and increased workload for other team members.
- High turnover rates due to employees feeling unsupported.
Imagine that things go south with that crucial person, or they just have to leave in a hurry due to outside circumstances. Your business may be up that proverbial creek without a paddle. The paddle, of course, being the specific knowledge inside their head. Not only do you have to find a replacement, but you will have to onboard them—which will be very tricky without the expertise of the departed team member.
The benefits of workplace planning
The way to identify and eliminate single-person dependencies is through good workplace planning. This often-undervalued practice aims to align the organisation’s goals and needs with its people strategy.
It will help owners and managers to create the kind of workplace they would like to work in; one which is competitive, agile, and resilient.
With workplace planning you can achieve:
- Improved productivity and efficiency as a result of reduced single person dependencies.
- Increased employee satisfaction and retention due to the development of a clear career path and opportunities for advancement. Training people is not only future-proofing for the business but engaging and empowering for those upskilled employees. It creates a culture of continuous learning and development.
- Reduced recruitment costs and improved hiring outcomes as a result of proactive workforce planning.
- Agility; the ability to quickly recover from and respond to changes in the sector.
- Better profitability as a result of reduced disruptions and better continuity, even in the absence of key employees.
According to the World Bank, SMEs make up 90% of businesses worldwide—but in New Zealand, MBIE has that at 97%. Two of the agency’s Small Business Strategy key themes are hugely relevant for any organisation seeking to improve their people strategy: building capabilities and skills and shifting from compliance to enablement. For a small business to thrive and not just survive, it must shift from having the bare minimum of what is necessary to possessing depth, breadth, and quality of skill. This means strategic hiring and also training and upskilling the people you have.
How to plan for success
Workforce planning allows you to discover risks like single-person dependencies and intentionally plan to mitigate or eliminate them. It also identifies opportunities to develop your team members strategically, a benefit for your organisation and for them as individuals.
Here are some simple steps to get you started:
- Conduct a workforce analysis to identify single person dependencies and potential skills gaps.
- Develop a plan to mitigate single person dependencies, such as cross-training employees or outsourcing tasks.
- Create a reserve bench of employees who can step in when needed by providing training and development opportunities.
- Review and update the workforce plan regularly to ensure it remains relevant and aligned with the business goals and objectives.
- Monitor employee performance and engagement to identify potential retention risks and take appropriate action.
TL;DR: Delete those dependencies
Single-person dependencies are risky. They cause bottlenecks and disruptions in your workplace when key people are unavailable, reducing productivity and profit.
Good workplace planning, which involves aligning your business goals and needs with your people strategy, can eliminate these risks as well as creating clear career paths and opportunities for advancement in your teams. With a good reserve bench, your business is future-proofed and more agile.
Here’s what you can do:
- Map who does what.
- Select a reserve player for each of these tasks.
- Where's the gap?
- Where's the interest?
- From here, link your findings in to your training plan for the year.
Need more detail? There’s a whole article above!
Get the right help
Emendas can help you describe and implement the journey from “work as imagined”—that is, your best intentions—to “work as done”. You might have ideas for how you want to eliminate single-person dependencies and make changes to your people strategy. We have the expertise to help you make it happen.
We look at your operations and the documents that describe your operations, making sure they match. We identify the capabilities, opportunities, and strengths across the team. We help you streamline your workplace by clearly articulating roles, responsibilities, and the right people—to mitigate risk and beef up that reserve bench with World Cup-level talent.
Specifically, you might be interested in our ScoreCard assessments to identify single-person dependencies and other risks in your operations, or our range of workshops which equip business leaders with the skills they need to succeed.