MBA2319 Q&A Wednesday: My employee surprised me and just resigned. What do I do?

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show. No fluff, just the good stuff with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday. On Q &A Wednesdays, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Tim. And Tim asks, hey Omar, I'm in a bit of a pickle. One of my key players on my team surprised me and just resigned.

0:43And honestly, I have no idea what to do. I need to fill this role quickly, and it's a pretty big position. I'm also not really sure how to do a knowledge transfer this quickly. I got a few weeks to figure it out. Would love any advice. Thanks, Tim. Tim, I want to start by saying you are not the first or last person that had to deal with this situation. I myself have been in this predicament a few times, and I'm here to tell you it's okay. This will pass. You'll find somebody that will replace this position, and hopefully they'll do great in their new job. But right now, we've got to focus on getting somebody in this job and making sure that the handover of responsibilities, skills, and knowledge is done properly.

1:25But you don't have much time, so I'm going to give you my strategies when it comes to, one, quickly finding a new hire. Two, simultaneously doing a handover. I know they're not there yet, but you still can do some stuff. I'll show you. And then three, landing the plane, having a smooth transition, allowing your business not to skip a beat. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. It can be shocking for a business owner when they get the news that a team member is resigning. It's unexpected. And it's mostly because you're really busy doing other things and it just seems out of the blue.

1:58Problem is, is that you're going to have to stop doing those other things temporarily so that you can solve this problem. So you can find somebody to replace this person and have a smooth handover like we mentioned. I want to start by saying something that we all need to agree on, something that we all need to believe in because it's true. We are all replaceable. As hard as it seems to replace this person, you're going to find somebody. It's possible because even yourself can be replaced. We're all not unique snowflakes. Most of what we do and know can be taught, can be learned, can be duplicated.

2:30So don't worry. Now, there's a few things you're going to need to do in this situation, Tim. You need to find somebody new. You need to have some sort of way for them to learn, this new person, they need to learn the job and understand the procedures and responsibilities and how to do things and have a smooth handover. And then three, you need the transition to be smooth so there's no gap in time or not that much gap in time where one person leaves and the other person starts. So we're going to actually start with the handover because you can do things right now with the employee that you have that has resigned that can help you have a smooth handover.

3:03Their task right now, their job really should be, as they're doing their last few weeks, to document every procedure they do, every responsibility they do. They need to write down what they do every day, how they do it, step by step, shoot videos, basically create an instructional manual for this new hire. I've done this in the past, and it's actually a really good practice because you create a library of how to do every position. Now, what if two things are going to happen? You're going to hire somebody before the other person leaves, your current employee leaves, and they can be able to do a handover and direct them to the right documents and videos so they can train them in the new job.

3:42Or your new hire starts after your current employee leaves. And in this case, you still have the documentation, you still have the training and the videos, and you can just make sure that you point them to that training every single day. And you can have your current employee build out some sort of training plan. So after they document everything, you can have a plan or a document that says, hey, watch this first, second, third, fourth. This is what you're going to do in your first week or two to learn about this position and how to do the job. So this can be implemented immediately. And I highly recommend you get started immediately.

4:16So that way you have peace of mind that whoever you hire, they're going to have that knowledge transfer. Second, you need to find somebody for this position. This is where your network comes in. Don't keep this to yourself. Tell your team, tell your network, tell your friends, your family, your social media, that you're hiring, you're looking for somebody in this position. Why? Because people in your network, people in your team, the people that you speak to often or see or follow, they're in the same circles. They're gonna find the same types of people that you need. Your employees understand what it takes to work at your company and will know if they know somebody that would be a good fit.

4:51They're going to give you high quality candidates. So make sure you make this public as quickly as possible and let people know. And this all starts with a job description. Make sure you have a job description. You probably already have one when you hired this person in the first place. Give it a once over. Make sure that it's polished and updated so that they have something to read to know, hey, I'm interested in this job. Remember, when you're hiring, yes, they are selling themselves to you saying, hey, I think I'm good enough for this job. But you need to do the same. You need to sell working for your company, especially in an economy or in a job or in a position where it's highly competitive, like engineering or design or product or whatever it might be.

5:29These people are highly sought after. They have a lot of options. So you need to sell them on why your company is amazing, your product is amazing, why they want to work at your team, why it's exciting to be a part of what you're doing. Create an application form with Google Forms and go at it. Put that form everywhere. Put it on your website. Put it on LinkedIn. in, you might want to put it on a job board, a LinkedIn jobs or in your country, a job board that's popular. If you want to throw money at the problem and solve it quickly, go with a recruitment agency. You can negotiate the rate. If you're a startup, let them know, hey, you don't have a huge budget, but you're willing to pay something to find a great hire and they can screen people for you and get people to apply for your job and you can start interviewing as quickly as possible.

6:08Typically, what recruitment agencies do is that they charge a one-time fee, which is a percentage of their annual salary. So let's say, for example, this job is$100 ,000 a year. They might charge you anything between 20 % to 10 % of their salary. That means they're going to pay, you know, if it's 15%,$15 ,000. You can negotiate terms. You can say, hey, I'll pay it in payments, whatever it might be. Everything's negotiable. They are going to be willing to help and work with you if it means they're going to get that commission. But it's a quick and easy way for you to find a candidate that's good for your position.

6:41Now, recruiters are not a surefire thing. you should still try to advertise a job on your own profiles, on social media, on your website, on LinkedIn jobs, all that kind of stuff. Because, hey, you might find somebody through those channels and you can save the recruitment fee. Your job is to try to find the best candidate, period. Don't feel the pressure of time like, I need to find somebody before this person leaves. If they leave, there might be a gap of a week or two, but that's okay. The training plan is there and your business will survive. People take time off. That person that resigned probably had a holidays sometime in their career, right?

7:14They took a week off, two weeks off, and everything is fine. You can survive. It's more important for you to find the best hire so you don't have to rehire later on. Now, once they join your team, you want to make sure that they're ramped up as fast as possible. Give them a very clear training plan so they understand your company, how to work with the tools, how to work in their position. You give them all those trainings and documentations that you've done with the employee that resigned, and you give them an end goal. Like, hey, by the The end of this week, you should be able to do X, Y, Z. And the end of next week, this is what you should be completed or half completed and get their feet wet, get them working, get them trying as fast as possible.

7:53Remember, when people are starting jobs, they're excited, they're full of energy, they're ready to give in their all. I want to tell you, when you have to find somebody new for a position, it's actually an opportunity. It's not like the person that's resigning is bad. They're great. They did a good job. But maybe you can find somebody that can do a better job. Or maybe you can find somebody that can do more than just the job. They can do other things as well. They have other skills. Maybe they're going to come with their network or come with maybe their clients if it's a sales job. They might add value in different ways in terms of the culture of your team or your office.

8:24And even though you feel like you're in a rush right now to hire, always think about hiring for the long term. Is this person going to be somebody that can grow in your company and excel and give you more year after year? And not just fill the position right now. Because one thing is for sure in business. you will experience change in order to grow. You have to grow, you have to change, and they're gonna have to change. This is something we talk about in our company all the time. We all have to have a growth mindset. We all have to change. We all have to adapt because otherwise we will not be competitive.

8:50We gotta keep moving with the times. That's the only thing I can guarantee. We will change. Remember, if you have your current person that just resigned, everything's negotiable. Speak to them. Say, can you get another week out of them, another two weeks out of them? Find out what's possible. Whatever that is, get them involved in the hiring process. No one knows the job better than they do, and they can help you with the interviews, with the screening, with finding the right candidate. And they're going to feel a little bit of an obligation to kind of feel like, hey, I want to help this company out, find my replacement since I'm leaving.

9:20So they're kind of motivated to find you somebody good. Lastly, use this as a lesson. You feel a little bit panicked because you want to replace the position as soon as possible because it's a key role. But remember, this could happen again. So it's important to have some redundancy. So whatever this position is, whatever their role is, is there anybody else on the team that can get trained up to know how to do this role and step in just in case? What if this person is going to leave of absence or gets ill? Creating a level of redundancy in your business gives you security and allows you to have not only a safety net, but velocity to move faster because more than one person can do one job.

9:55For example, if you're hiring somebody who is a customer service agent, can they also do QA, quality assurance? For example, if you've got somebody that is running your paid ads and doing your paid acquisition, can they run webinars too or even shoot some videos for YouTube? Having a multifaceted team member allows you to really have redundancies in different areas. Having more than one person do a particular task, knowing how to do a particular task and is involved in those tasks is not only going to help you as a business, but it's going to help them as an employee. It's going to help them grow and feel like, hey, I'm learning something.

10:28I'm being stretched. I'm being challenged. I know when I was in a job, those are the jobs I loved, the ones I felt like I was learning and growing because you can't put a price on that. And to wrap up, this too shall pass. It's a rough time right now. It's okay. Find that person. Get them onboarded. Get that training set up. Have that transition and learn the lessons that need to be learned. Have that redundancy for the future. Thanks so much for listening to the$100 MBA show. I love the fact that you're listening to this podcast right now. And if you love the podcast, what you can do is share it.

11:01Go ahead and share it on social media. Let people know that you listen to the$100 MBA show so they can listen to and grow their business along with us. Let's build this community we've had for over eight years together. If you've got a moment, give us a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. And don't forget to hit subscribe so you get our next episodes automatically. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If this position that you have an opening for is something that you can do, You have the skills. This gives you a little bit more of a leeway, more time, because you can change your schedule around and step in and do the job a little bit yourself, at least, to fill in the gap until you find the hire.

11:35This also gives you a taste of what the job is all about. So when you're going through the interview process, you know what questions to ask and who you're looking for. Somebody to take away the workload you're doing right now. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show. I'll check you in Friday's episode, Free Art Friday. I'll see you then. Take care.

11:55Thank you.