Don't quit on me!
June 23rd, 2010 | Online & Small Business Resources,Quality,Small Business,Small Business Tips | No Comments »
When starting a small business, everyone wears multiple hats and jumps in to assist where needed. As your business grows, you work to hire people to fill specific roles so that:
1) the founders can focus on more strategic direction
2) to drive the business forward
3) effectively execute on key initiatives.
You proudly get your entire team staffed up and people are working hard in their roles and the business grows exponentially – everything is on the up and up, customers are fascinated with your product line and you have a backlog of requests to implement… and then, somebody quits.
So this perfect (well at least manageable) entourage you have created to implement your product roadmap now comes to a screeching halt, or at least imposes a very large mountain to navigate around. To keep business moving, you must revert back to wearing multiple hats, which in turn impacts growth and forces you to re-prioritize efforts, at least until you can back fill.
In larger companies, the back fill process can be lengthy and daunting. What tends to happen is until the position is refilled, the tasks of the resigning employee are dumped on other employees… it becomes a juggling process to continue forward momentum.
While you cannot 100% prohibit turnover from happening, you can implement processes to ensure smooth transition in the event and also back fill (or redistribute effectively) so that you don’t end up pushing further resources out the door from overload. People leave for a variety of reasons, but when building a team for a small business and growing your company, retention can be critical. Then again, sometimes, that resignation is music to your ears…
How do you motivate your team to stand by you? What transition plans do you have in place in the event of a mutiny?
