Absences should never shut down progress

“I’m sorry but I can’t help you because < fill in name here > is out of the office. You will have to wait until they return.”

Few workplace situations irritate me more than this scenario. And, no matter how well-intentioned some of our colleagues may be, they seem to creep up all the time.

Last week the Blackberry I carry for work started having serious battery issues. The IT staff swapped the battery to no avail. So the next step was to retire the device and issue me a new one. No problem, except for the fact that one week later I am still waiting to carry a replacement that is fully functional. Why? In part, because there is one person who is authorized to change users on our mobile phone account and he is out right now - until next week. As the communications advisor to my boss, I’m one of probably five people in my organization that MUST have a functioning device that works almost anywhere – 24/7.

This isn’t the first time this has happened in my career and it’s been especially bad in the government and military. Whether it’s getting a new mobile device or getting some critical paperwork signed before a deadline, I’ve heard the line that I’ll have to wait until someone comes back more times than I would care to recall.

That answer has never sat well with me and it never will. I can think of almost no case where a complete lack of redundancy is acceptable. I guess it might be a good thing if you’re the person who knows the secret recipe for KFC but…

If you have to roll that line out on someone, it means leadership fell short of its responsibilities. A system or process shouldn’t shut down because it relies on one person and if that person is gone, tough luck. I don’t mean to be pointedly critical of my colleagues because they’re good people but stuff like this shouldn’t happen. I don’t care whether it’s the ability to approve large contracts, authorize someone to take vacation or add them to a mobile contract.

Redundancy is essential because our organization needs to continue functioning even if – gasp – we’re not here. The place won’t (and can’t) shut down just because we’re out of the office. The same principle applies to our people. When our subordinates are assigned responsibilities and they transfer or leave, the time to get their duties assigned elsewhere is before they’re gone, not after.

I’ve said it in previous posts here – life never comes calling in advance to tell us something is going to happen. The time to get someone else qualified isn’t when the problem arises…and < fill in name here > is out of the office.