It doesnt involve any new hires, and it gives your employees new skills that make them more valuable. I understand that the data I am submitting will be used to provide me with the above-described products and/or services and communications in connection therewith. Job rotation means two employees swap jobs during each month, Bill gets Job A the first two weeks and Job B the last two weeks, and Betty gets A and B vice versa. This is pretty much an HR thing. As an IT staff, this is why we keep clear and concise documentation on our network and everything we do. One of just about anything is a bad thing. Your email address will not be published. Just as a bonus point, one's the worst number for anything else, too. The FDIC and NCUA requires this in the financial world too.
This needs to be scheduled as a priority and not left to chance. I mean not really 100% backup, but that at least one that can handle temporarily his/her duties? There is indeed a standard for this, and your company can get certified against it: However depending on the size of your company and the scope of your operations, it may be more prudent to simply have a recovery plan (just something formally documented, vs. an entire BC/DR plan/program). It helps build stronger teams because employees get to know the challenges faced by their colleagues in their respective job roles. He's right, for our purposes. He isn't good at any of it but can do it!!! Job sharing means two part-time people doing one full-time job. A well defined and up to date SOP - Standard Operating Procedure. Again, your staffing analysis should contain this information. In a business where multiple employees know how to perform any given set of tasks, there is no unnecessary dependence on a single person. Your daily dose of tech news, in brief. After all, their job and the plan that you are looking for is part of business continuity. This is definitely a company culture kind of thing. Whether it's temporary or long term, employees asked to assume greater responsibilities need support. A certain amount of turnover is healthy for the business, as are certain types of turnover (for example, the dismissal of a toxic employee). Some pay ahead for "x" many hours of work, some don't but having a contract and a respectable MSP that is familiar to you and your business is better than a "@#$% there's a problem and wedon'thave a backup plan for this situation". I've created checklists and policies that are backed up up by senior management, and everything else is documented so well that if I were to suddenly not able to come in tomorrow, my company should be able to call our MSP, let them snoop my files and AD a little, and pick up where I left off with little to no interruption in projects or day-to-day business. Entrepreneur and its related marks are registered trademarks of Entrepreneur Media Inc. No B.S.
But before we party like it's 1999, let's dial back the calendar to that year. If they have not yet done so then they should and they may provide the leverage that you seem to need to argue for an improvement in this area. You may want part of an employees job performance evaluation to include how well things run when they are not in the office. This helps with the costs associated in such an event. In my home office, where I work under deadline pressure as an advertising copywriter, I do not have one Mac. The person going on vacation or coming back after a sick day commonly returns to an extensive stack of work. Click here for more information about how we use cookies on our site or read our privacy policy here. Please log in as a SHRM member before saving bookmarks. Even for short vacations, you want productivity to remain high. Please purchase a SHRM membership before saving bookmarks. We'd survive, it'd stink, but we'd be OK. if my wife got run over by a bus, I'd figure out what she did, we'd be OK. Ruthless Management of People & Profits, How Brands Can Leverage OTT and FAST for Marketing Success, How Robots are Creating a 2X More Profitable Pizzeria, Man Quits Teaching Job to Work At Walmart Where He Claims He Can More Than Double His Salary, What Leaders Can Learn From Elon Musk's Ultimatum to Tesla Executives. Elon Musk Is Worried About Bots. The IT person needs to make sure everything is properly documented and needs to share that documentation with the MSP. You cant expect people to step in, during a stressful time, if they dont know what to do. 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. The guy working in electronics has also changed your oil, stocked the milk, and assembled your lawn mower. A well-structured job-rotation scheme to cross-train employees could be put in place with mentorship provided at each stage. Traditionally, it focuses on top-level positions, but it can be done for any key position in the organization. His presentations inform, empower and entertain read more about Ken, Address: Hello Everyone,I'm doing research on what we will need to do in order to migrate from Folder Redirection to OneDrive Known Folder Move. At a certain point though, educating everyone becomes more expensive that just creating a solution that Just Works 99% of the time. Read the last sentence: but that at least one that can handle temporarily his/her duties? Plus a big driver of this is of course money. I'm not aware of any.
Replacement plans provide the organization with the comfort that a last-minute resignation, retirement, or employee illness will not leave the company disadvantaged. But for everyday users. This will allow the business to continue if something happens to me. That is a business decision, and very much depends on the size and function of the business, it is too variable to put in to a regulation saying "every business must have xyz". Step 5. The Hiring Outlook for TA? This is especially important in situations where one employee does a very important task. I am a one-person department here so I can speak from experience. Pay attention to jobs that don't have matches. This is really practival, but in your case one is none , there's no backup since there's only one person for IT tasks.You should really think about hiring a backup IT guy , perhaps parttime (if he's willing to work more in case of absence or sicknes of the other guy)Better, give the current IT guy some new stuff to do, and let him hand over some of his tasks to the new guy , that keeps the job interresting for the current guy too. I've been running as the primary IT Manager for years, with one developer who wrote our entire MRP system (my wife). I love the idea of a 'redundant ' IT guy waiting for the other to be run over by a bus so he can be 'hot swapped' into his chair without any disruption or downtime.
This exercise will possibly surface some jobs that need immediate attentionmeaning there is no replacement available. I have been documenting things since the day I got here almost three years ago. It might be worth looking for study cases supporting what you're trying to advise the boss about. If you simply dont have the staff or the expertise in-house to be ready to cover every position, plan ahead for how you would handle it if each employee quit. I am certainly not aware of any regulation, ISO or other standard that recommends this. Ahead of time, while doing the work, write down every step. According to SHRM, the average time to fill an open position is 42 days. Please note that all such forms and policies should be reviewed by your legal counsel for compliance with applicable law, and should be modified to suit your organizations culture, industry, and practices. Find the latest news and insights on how employers are responding to potential changes to state and federal abortion laws, as well as members-only resources for supporting your employees. Join/Renew Nowand let SHRM help you work smarter. If the CEO thought it was really important, we'd have an MSP or other local entity on standby if I'm unavailable. The first is that backups are generally not as well-trained as the original operator. Further, they should be made to understand that such training helps both the employee and the organizational growth as employees improve their performance and have higher satisfaction with their jobs. My transition to IT was in a company under Sarbanes-Oxley regulations (regulates U.S. publicly traded companies and their subsidiaries), and as part of our regular reporting requirements we had to confirm thatuser permissions were appropriately limited, accounts/passwords weren't being shared,accounts for terminated users were being deactivated within a certain amount of time, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act. and managers need to be made responsible for the cross-training of their team members. Unless you have some critical knowledge or skill at least most of the core functionality of your business should be duplicated to some degree. This. Figure out who is the logical person to take on the role. However, some aspects need to be taken care of before initiating such a program and those include the decisions on the eligibility of candidates for cross-training, for which roles cross-training is required or if all the employees need to be cross-trained in all departments, whether it will be voluntary or mandatory and the protocols that need to be set in place for the implementation of the program, etc. Once youre confident in their abilities, pair employees up to share their knowledge with others. In a perfect world there would be a standard for this but it just isn't feasible in all cases. Was this article useful? We are just a day away from the weekend! Please log in as a SHRM member. They understand that they will be the secondary support for our operation and have not made any attempt to take over the world. If I call in sick, is there someone who can take over for me temporarily? If your marketing person is the only one who knows how to handle your business social media accounts, for instance, could you start training a junior employee how to do it? Depending on the skill level of your IT guy they can help tighten up operations while getting comfortable with your systems. Pick a couple of times a year, during slower times, when people can revisit their training. But that's an easier economic puzzle to solve than suddenly, abruptly being without the one person absolutely required to deliver a job on time to your most important client or to get tax reports filed before you're fined up the wazoo or to staff your trade show booth this weekend, where you intend writing 30 percent of your business for the year. Your question and thinking is very smart and as many have already shared is part of, at the very least, a backup plan much less a DR (Disaster Recovery) plan. 2022 Fundbox, Inc. All rights reserved. Most businesses operate with limited team members, making each employee a vital part of the mix. I also pass the location of the documentation on to my boss. And recruiters will want to have a say in how that plan is developed. You dont want people to pass on bad habits to others.
Or it could be an added step in the existing process. 
This is a foolproof employee backup plan in the constantly changing business environment where an employee might need to take up a new role out of the blue. If it were my decision, for a small-mid sized company, I'd try to focus more on educating users about backing things up than on making a bulletproof backup solution. Use talent pools to develop transferable skills for many positions. You decide at whose head the gun is pointed. 2. Thank you Sirs. Really they are there in case I am run over by the ever present bus that seems to chase us down. Having backups implies something. To improve the productivity of your business, you need an employee backup plan. Why? Create an organization chart (even if youve only got five people on staff) and write a job description for all roles and responsibilities. Leadership and performance expert and author, Ken Okel works with people who want to unleash employee performance, productivity, and profits. so that they can keep their favorite settings with ease. 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. When doing reviews, dont just focus on now; ask employees where they see their future in the company and what other skills theyd like to learn. And since you are the Financial Manager, this seems right in your line of work. But It's something that should be considered. I guess the challenge for businesses (and individuals) is to build enough resilience and a good foundation on which to deal with the expected and the unexpected. ;-) To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail! The remaining employees may have to take up work that they previously had no involvement in.
This is why recruiting needs to be a part of the conversation so there are no surprises. Regular replacement planning activities make the organization keenly aware of the support the affected employees will need to be successful. Never one. Read our privacy policy for more information. I agree with having an MSP as the IT backup. Any time all your eggs are in one basket, some guy named Murphy jumps in with a big wrench and throws it into the machine and then watches the chaos ensue. } And in case Mac No. Dont rely on written instructions to get the job done. Part of the problem is that IT staff aren't recognised for their skills and there often is a general assumption that anyone within the IT team can cover. You could be affected by a similar situation if you insist on leaving yourself vulnerable to it. Step 7. 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. 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. Your email address will not be published. Documentation of duties and procedures is always good. Transparency. 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.
Apply for funding and find out if you qualify today. I have worked to find a trustworthy local consulting firm (after trying several I found less reliable and communicative), documented things up the wazoo for them, brought them on site and walked them around (literally and virtually) things so that they could cover for me while I was out for two weeks. On a regular basis evaluate the plan to make sure the company's needs can still be met.
Then there is the need for documentation to explain your current system (check that the IT guy has it). Each business must make these decisions for themselves. Well in your case it's rather easy , normally when you have a company with lets say 5 fte it staff you start by making a knowledge matrix.The knowledge matrix can be built by just standard tasks , and appended with specialistic tasks each individual does.Once the matrix is in place you let every IT person fill out if and how skilled he is at such a task.0 = not , 1 - 3 = levelLike that you can see on what tasks there's enough overlap , and on wich tasks there;'s no overlap.You don't have to have 2 people that are higly qualified for each task, but qualified to do at least daily activities, and troubleshooting to some extent. No. In fact, what many fail to realise is that cross-training outweighs the results of other methods aimed at enhancing team performance. You can then back it up the server. As many have said, it is ultimately senior management's decision based on many different factors. All employees should be saving their critical data to the server. There is "good practice" as opposed to an ISO standard. Every business is different and has different goals and needs, it is up to each business owner how to best achieve his goals and provide the most profitable business model he can. You are setting aside time for this process. No I can't reset your password. If people cant find the instructions, then they are worthless. The point isnt to give everyone double duty, but to widen the scope of each employees job so they have more variety and become more confident in their new skills. Sharlyn Lauby, SHRM-SCP, is the author ofHR Bartenderblog and president of ITM Group Inc., a Florida-based training and human resource consulting firm focused on helping companies retain and engage talent. Your goal is to make the instructions easy to understand and follow. A cross-training program cannot be designed and implemented at short notice, that too during a period of crisis. Figure out who should do what. If there's one activity that has more of an impact than succession planning and talent pools, it's replacement planning, although the term is frequently used in conversations about succession planning. However, if you want to market , Is a tight budget making it hard for you to pay bills on time? Most businesses operate with limited team members, making each employee a vital part of the mix. Not only does enhancement of the employees skills benefit the business, but also the employees themselves. I'm reading this question as: Do most companies have a contingency plan for if their 1 man IT dept quits or dies today?I've worked as the 1 man IT dept a few times, and in my experience that answer is usually No. Step 2. You have successfully saved this page as a bookmark. Yes in this case backups mean a backup person in case 1 person is incapacitated. This motivates them to be supportive of one another, increasing work efficiency. Step 3. Once you know which skills are in short supply, pinpoint the people who could best fill those gaps.
At the very least, document your concern by sending it in writing (email) to your manager/supervisor. That can leave you vulnerable if that employee is out of the office unexpectedly. With replacement planning, the organization doesn't have to identify a single replacement. 3561 Silver Lace Lane #64 Members can get help with HR questions via phone, chat or email. This topic has been locked by an administrator and is no longer open for commenting. Step 4. If you have a file server with enough space, you map a personal drive for all employees and inform employees to backup their data there. Unemployment line, here I come. You're a hostage. We tell our employees to keep data on the server. I will tell you from experience, most places don't have anything like this in place, but in a perfect world everyone should have a "backup" that can temporarily fill their role should they be incapacitated. One thing that I've seen other businesses do for personal backup is to have an open contract with a respectable MSP (Managed Service Provider). Boynton Beach, FL 33436, Ken loves speaking to audiences about how they can get more done at work with less stress. I am Financial Manager and want to advise our boss about that. Shouldnt you have a similar strategy at work for employees? However, I have all of my passwords documented, and because of the way most of our systems work, there really is no black magic to anything I do. Your step-by-step instructions should go in a labeled binder on your desk or in an easy to find computer folder. I'm a Stay-At-Home Parent and Entrepreneur, and I'm Burnt Out. Dont allow an unexpected emergency to paralyze your organization because the replacement cant remember what to do. Visit CI Central| Visit Our Continuous Improvement Store, Last updated by Jeff Hajek on March 21, 2021. (For soap opera fans, we were divorced. They get access to our staff of engineers and coverage when their guy is not available. So, whats the solution? For a small business, having one key employee quit can cause chaos. New OSHA Guidance Clarifies Return-to-Work Expectations, Trump Suspends New H-1B Visas Through 2020, Faking COVID-19 Illness Can Have Serious Consequences, How Exam Preparation Benefits Youand Your Organization. Those key positions are a place to start. When the time comes, empowered employees and their organisations can together cope better with the whatever challenges come their way! We don't back up their devices; only the network shares. if(currentUrl.indexOf("/about-shrm/pages/shrm-china.aspx") > -1) { In my companies case the biggest problem they face is that for the last 12 years or so they have been using custom software that I wrote to handle a large portion of their business. The best businesses have equity in their control of their customers, not just in their products. Real world situations in which an organization lost\had to pay a large sum of money to recover after loosing a key employee. That was the most relaxing two week vacation I have taken since I started in IT. All that being said, I don't believe there is any sort of standards body that has anything covering this. For key positions, the individuals currently holding those roles can be tasked with helping identify their replacement and train them. Ideally, yes, every position would have a back-up staff, but most companies don't have the funds or resources to cross-train people for every position.
Develop a plan to address gaps. Organisations have had to suddenly take measures that they had never made any contingencies for, including scrambling to establish remote-working capabilities. It would make labor and hiring even more unmanageable. Whether this is or is not in relation to the IT person's performance, that person should not be offended. A great business has diversity of success drivers in every aspect of the business. In fact, what many fail to realise is that cross-training outweighs the results of other methods aimed at enhancing team performance.