Dealing with the Loss of an Important PRINCE2 Team Member
Any project can lose vital staff at some point. There are clearly many different reasons why someone could want to look to further their career elsewhere.
In fact, it is pretty much impossible to try and stick with exactly the same people on your projects year after year. Some of them will naturally leave you for one reason or another. How can you deal with this loss without it adversely affecting your work?
Table of Contents
Train or Hire Someone to Take Over Their Tasks
The last thing that you need is to be left in the lurch when someone leaves your team in the middle of a project. Of course sometimes this will be unavoidable. They might have some very strong personal reasons for wanting to leave before the work is over.
In this case, you will probably need to train or hire someone to take over from them. Are they working on highly specialised tasks that you need to sure someone else to be fully competent in before this person leaves the team?
What if the loss of a senior member of your project team leaves you short? Do you need to swiftly sort out PRINCE2 Course Bristol so that you can promote someone else to replace them in the team?
It is important that you retain a good balance of skills and experience when a valued team member leaves. Can you promote from within to do this or do you need to hire externally in order to maintain the current skill level on your projects?
Arrange a Hand-Over Period
There are some very good reasons why workers need to work a certain period of notice before they can leave a job. This time allows the employer the opportunity to find a way of replacing them with as little impact as possible.
One way of doing this is to organise a formal hand-over period for their role. This means that their replacement works with them closely in their final weeks in your company.
This will allow the newcomer to be introduced to stakeholders and other important people before they get started in earnest. In this way, their start in the role can be a lot smoother than it would otherwise have been.
Of course, this approach requires you to find the replacement worker as soon as you can. In this way, you will give them sufficient time to get up to speed and to settle into the role while their predecessor is still there to lend them a hand.
Work Out How to Avoid Future Staff Losses
As mentioned earlier on, there is no way to avoid staff leaving you occasionally. This is a part of business that can be extremely awkward but that you can’t hope to avoid completely.
Having said that, it is always worth considering why an important team member wants to leave you. If you put some thought into this then it can make it easier for you to retain the rest of your workers for as long as possible.
Are they simply looking for a new challenge? Do they want more opportunities for promotion than you can offer them? Is it a question of looking for more money or better working conditions elsewhere?
You should encourage everyone who leaves your PRINCE2 team to be open and honest with you about their reasons. This could help you to make life better for your remaining staff and keep your team together for as long as possible.
Don’t accept the loss of key staff without working out how better to deal with it. This will help to face up to the future without them.