A reader writes:
The company I currently work for was perfect for me when I started in the corporate world – low-key, the owner is very polite, and my boss would let me do the work without micromanaging. But recently we have grown much larger while still maintaining the “small business” mentality.
Our profits have more than quadrupled in the last seven years, but the number of employees at head office has not increased in response (we are still less than 20 people). An everyday common phrase is, “It’ll slow down eventually…right?”
It’s getting me to the point where I need to find another job, and I’ve started job searching. My concern is, I honestly employ three people (with three different managers) and I know they won’t be able to hire and train someone between the time I give my notice and leave. No one at the company is currently able to do most of my work.
How can I begin preparing and training my coworkers to do their jobs without making it clear that I plan to leave? Or potentially putting my job in jeopardy before I can find a new one?
Or is this a situation where I need to let it go and say, “Not my responsibility”?
latter.
If your employer were as concerned about this as you are, they would be creating time and structures for you to cross-train your coworkers. They aren’t, so you don’t need to.
There Are There are some limitations to this: the more senior you are in your job, the greater your responsibility to ensure that things like this are taken care of. If you’re the director of a department and saying “If I got buried in an avalanche tomorrow no one would be able to cover even the basic things, oh well, too bad,” that’s a problem. This type of planning is part of that work. And even if you’re not that senior, in some cases at a certain level of responsibility it will be part of doing the job well to identify the essential areas in which other people need to be trained and make sure that happens, or convey it to someone who can – or say to your own boss, “Here’s a major point of weakness in our coverage, here’s what the consequences might be if I suddenly weren’t here, and here’s how I think we go about it.” Could do – but I don’t currently have time to do it.”
So if you haven’t done that last part, you should. You don’t need to make it clear that it’s because you’re thinking about quitting; Think of it this way, what would happen if you were suddenly hospitalized, won the lottery, or got eaten by a wild boar.
But if they don’t make it a priority – which means taking a backseat to other priorities and making real time to do it for you. And Do the same for people you want to train in your fields – so you don’t have to. You’ve marked it out for them, and the next step is up to them.
All that said, if you have time to work on some transition documents that you can get behind, that’s a good thing to do… but it doesn’t sound like you have a lot of free time for it, and it’s not something you should be working extra hours to accomplish (again, if it were that important to your employer, they would make sure you had time to make it a priority). Furthermore, when people leave detailed and beautifully organized documentation of their work, it often goes unnoticed – so it’s definitely not something you should trouble yourself with achieving if it’s not easily doable. (For the same reason, if you do this, aim for a few pages of bulleted information, max. The idea isn’t to write a detailed manual for how to do your job – again, unless you’re asked to and given enough time to do so – it’s to leave the most important information after you leave for the person who needs it.)
But it’s very common in office-type jobs to not be able to hire and train a person before they leave. Most people give two weeks’ notice, which is not enough time to advertise the job, interview candidates, make an offer, and then wait for the person to turn in their notice. So it is not unusual that they would not be able to do this; This is usually how it works and companies mess with it.
“Making trouble” might mean that they push back projects you were working on out of necessity, or cut them in half in ways you didn’t want to, or eliminate certain projects altogether, or bring in outside help. Or sure, sometimes a team will crash and burn because someone leaves, but that’s surprisingly rare. Often, their solutions may not look like everything you’re doing right now, but they’ll figure it out.
However, it is not your job to solve this because it is not your company! Flag the concern, and then leave it up to them to decide what to do about it.
