One of the first things that usually happens when someone resigns is to immediately start looking for their replacement.
If all is well, we ask the departing person to help with the recruitment and then conduct the handover. Hoping that the change is as smooth as possible with minimal impact on the business.
However, this is not the best approach to ensuring that we are constantly improving our businesses. No one likes receiving a resignation however this is actually the perfect time to take a moment to look at your team and workflow and see what has changed since you last recruited for this role.
Before you jump into replacing the person moving on, ask yourself these 7 questions:
As you can see I focus on the role, not the person in the role. We rarely succeed in replacing people because no one is the same with the same experience. We need to be looking at the roles within our business and then find the best way for the task within the roles to be completed effectively.
Next time you receive a resignation please stop and assess what you actually need right now. I guarantee that it is highly likely that the role you are recruiting for is different to last time you looked!
This article first appeared in Smart Company. To view the article click here