Why a business should always have a backup for every employee's tasks
Whilst most businesses maintain backups of their important digital data to mitigate risk of unforeseen events nowadays, one medium that holds priceless data is often overlooked – your employees. Never has this been more relevant than the events unfolding across the globe due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its unprecedented effects on businesses. Organisations have had to suddenly take measures that they had never made any contingencies for, including scrambling to establish remote-working capabilities.
Many businesses are struggling due to lack of economic activity and left with no choice but to furlough or even let go of their employees. In many cases, there isn’t enough work to go around or enough revenue to support the pre-pandemic headcount. The remaining employees may have to take up work that they previously had no involvement in. Those businesses that do not rely solely on one employee for a given task are now reaping the awards.
However, a global pandemic is the absolute worst-case scenario that we are unfortunately (and often unpreparedly) faced with. Even in normal times, unexpected things can happen. Your star employee could suddenly be offered their dream job abroad. Another employee might need to take a long leave of absence due to a sudden, unfortunate bereavement of a loved one.
In either case, if the employee was the only one with the knowledge to perform their work, the management may not find enough time for a handover. Chances are that whoever would pick up where they left off would not be able to perform their work optimally. With a backup in place, the tasks could be divided amongst the existing workforce, then handed over smoothly to a successor or returned to the employee upon their return.
Lateral cross-training is the foremost tool an organisation can use to ensure that the workforce is prepared to tackle any unanticipated turn of events. In a business where multiple employees know how to perform any given set of tasks, there is no unnecessary dependence on a single person. A well-structured job-rotation scheme to cross-train employees could be put in place with mentorship provided at each stage. A mentor, who could be an employee such as a supervisor or an external trainer would be responsible to teach the tasks and answer any resulting queries. None of this could work without formal documentation addressing every level of the learning curve. The documentation could take shape of training videos and process guides, to name a few.
Not only does enhancement of the employees’ skills benefit the business, but also the employees themselves. It is likely to improve their morale and confidence by making their work more rewarding and challenging. When the time comes, empowered employees and their organisations can together cope better with the whatever challenges come their way!
