Every time a person leaves your organization it presents you with an opportunity to improve your business.  As a leader you must seize these opportunities.  They are the most often presented cost-free opportunities you will have to improve your business.

How often do we just automatically open a requisition to replace a person who has left the organization?  Nine times out of ten is my experience.

I am frequently confronted by people asking for approval to replace a person who has left the organization.  My first question is, “Do we need to replace this person or can we do without them?”  I am stunned by the answers I often get.  ”Yes, they are really busy in that department.”  “People are really burning out.”  “If we don’t replace them other people will leave.”

Sorry, I don’t buy it.   These comments are subjective at best.  Has no one ever observed the practice that people make it look like they are busy so they don’t get assigned more work?  When a person leaves the organization how often do we think in terms of the opportunity to redefine responsibilities, create development assignments for people, or restructure and permanently reduce staff.

As a leader you must seize these opportunities.  They are the most often presented cost-free opportunities you will have to improve your business.

First, you must have metrics in place to be sure that you are effectively managing the level of resources required to handle the volumes…simple.  Those metrics will tell you if there is truly a need to replace an opening.

Second, automatically replacing an opening misses the opportunity to do something new and creative that will benefit the organization and the employees in it.

• Does the vacancy present an opportunity to do without the position and improve the profitability of the business?
• Does the vacancy present an opportunity to reassign work, give more responsibility to people, and give pay raises to those who remain?
• Does the vacancy present an opportunity to provide development assignments to others in the organization?

How do you make this happen?  Make sure that all replacements and new hires require your approval.  Require that all requisitions are accompanied by metrics which justify the hire.  Make sure that the metrics make sense and are calculated correctly (subject of another post to come).  Make sure that all other options have been explored before you approve the hire.