The person who knows how everything works has given notice. There is a moment of quiet panic, followed by an offer of more money.
The counter-offer usually fails
Not always, but often. People rarely leave purely over money, and a raise that appears only after a resignation tells them what it took to be valued.
Ask why first, properly, and listen. If the reason is something you can genuinely fix and want to, address that. If the reason is that they want something you cannot offer, accept it early and use the time well.
The notice period is the asset
This is where the real work is, and where most businesses waste the weeks feeling aggrieved.
- Get it written down. Every routine task, every login, every customer they alone deal with, every supplier who only speaks to them.
- Introduce the customers. Personally, before the last day, not by email afterwards.
- Have them train the replacement or the person covering. Even partially.
- Transfer access properly. Accounts, phone numbers, files, anything registered in their name.
Stay on good terms
They will be asked about you by people you have never met. And a decent number of good employees come back after a year somewhere else, which cannot happen if the exit was bitter.
Then ask the harder question
Why was one person the only one who knew this? That is not their doing, it is a structural fact about the business, and it will happen again with somebody else.
The businesses that survive a key resignation well are not lucky. They are the ones where the second person always knew roughly what the first one did.
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