It can be beneficial to have a single worker that you can rely on to show up and do his or her job correctly. Your worries seem to go right out the window when he or she is on-site. However, what happens when that person leaves? You may be thrown for a loop if that person decides to move onto greener pastures. The only way to handle this situation is to eliminate the "star employee" altogether. If you don't want to be left without a top-notch worker, you should get all your employees on the same level.
Keep calm and plan
You can be completely blindsided when your best employee decides to resign. What will you do with the projects they're working on? Who will take their clients? What responsibilities will be voided when he or she decides to resign? When that one employee leaves, you and the rest of your staff may face a period of stress and extra work. You'll need to find people to fill in where they can until you can hire someone new to take on the position. However, just because that employee is leaving doesn't mean the business will fall apart, and a few of the following options could help you remain sane throughout the process:
- Make a list – Look at the projects and responsibilities your star employee did on a regular basis and rank those in order of importance, Entrepreneur suggested. What absolutely needs to get done? Are there tasks that can wait until you hire someone? Once you have that figured out, you'll feel more organized and relieved.
- Delegate – You won't be able to take on all of your departing employee's work yourself. You'll need to dole out responsibilities. The rest of your staff will have to take on extra work until you can find someone else, but that doesn't mean they need to do things they hate. Instead, talk to your employees. Ask them where they want to go in the company and if there's any new tasks they'd like to try, Harvard Business Review explained. During that two-week grace period, you can have the new people shadow the other worker to learn specifics.
- Conduct an exit interview – If you haven't been having problems with the person who's leaving, you may think that his or her resignation came out of nowhere. That's why it's important to hold an exit interview to gain insight into the reasoning, HBR claimed. Maybe they're leaving for a reason that you can help them with, such as caring for a sick relative or moving. You could offer alternatives. Unpaid time off and remote working are great options to keep them on staff, the source explained. If that's not the case, you'll at least be able to find out what you could do better to increase employee retention.
Get rid of the star employee
The only way to ensure your business banking account doesn't suffer with the loss of an employee is to make sure there is more than one worker that can perform tasks. You don't want to rely on the same person for everything. That's going to create countless problems when he or she decides to leave. Instead, you should establish failsafe conditions, Entrepreneur suggested. Train multiple people to do similar tasks so someone else can step in if he or she is needed. You can also add a few freelance workers to your financial plan so you have someone always on call.
You don't have to be completely lost when one employee leaves. If you take the proper precautions to ensure the business doesn't rely on one person, you'll be better in the long run.