If the key person is away, who can take over?

An operations coordinator keeps the orders in their head: what ships in what order, which client accepts an exception, which supplier answers quickly in an emergency. When they are away for a week, things stop or get done twice. The scenario is illustrative: it describes a type of dependence, not a client.

Holidays get postponed or taken in pieces. Colleagues call them outside working hours. The exceptions agreed with clients are nowhere in writing, and on a return someone discovers them all over again.

The causes can differ and are worth checking separately: there is nowhere to write the information down, the access rights are not granted to anyone else, or nobody has practised taking over, so nobody feels able to.

List the activities that cannot wait: releasing orders, confirming deadlines to clients, ordering from critical suppliers. For each one, name a stand-in and grant them the access they need, in their own name, with the rights that fit the role.

Documentation alone is not enough: a procedure that has been read does not replace decisions made under real conditions, with an unhappy client on the phone. That is why a handover is tested, not declared. What is never passed on: personal passwords, named accounts, signatures — access is granted separately, not lent.

The practical step: one ordinary order, run from start to finish by the stand-in, with the key person present only as an observer. Whatever cannot be done without them is noted on the spot — that is the real list of things to fix.

You track how many blockages came up during the handover and how many times it came back to the key person. These are process indicators: they show how real the continuity is, not that delivery got better.

Is writing the procedures not enough? + −

A procedure helps with the steps that repeat identically. The costly part is judgement: which exception you accept, who you call when the deadline no longer fits. That transfers through supervised practice, and the procedure only becomes useful once someone else has used it.

Does this sound familiar?

Tell us what stops when the key person is away and we will tell you where we would start.

Preparing stand-ins and supervised handovers are described in Training & Leadership Development.

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