Do you have a team member who knows how everything works in your practice?
A strong personality who is the ‘fount of all knowledge’? Maybe, a general manager, practice manager or reception lead. Does it strike fear into your soul when you think they might leave you? This blog explores how utilising a process management and training platform can ease that pain and relieve the anxiety.
A process management platform will safeguard your business
Losing a key figure like your practice manager can be a major disruption to your business. Often, they carry a wealth of knowledge, manage countless processes, and take on responsibilities you might not even be fully aware of—until they’re no longer there. Whether they’ve decided to move on, take an extended leave, or get ‘hit by a bus’, the impact will be significant.
A process management platform not only eases the transition when your practice manager leaves but also safeguards your business by ensuring that all essential information, processes, and responsibilities are well-documented and accessible. Here’s why this is so critical.
1) Clearly Define Their Job Role
It’s easy to think you know everything your practice manager does—until they leave and you find out just how much they were juggling.
Without a well-defined role, additional duties tend to accumulate over time, creating a reliance on that person as the catch-all for things no one else is handling.
A manager can end up wearing many hats.
A process management platform ensures that every role, including the practice manager’s, is clearly defined. By mapping out all tasks and responsibilities, you’ll avoid unpleasant surprises when someone exits. You’ll know exactly what they were doing, from high-level strategy to day-to-day minutiae, and be better prepared to find a replacement who can step into their shoes. Annual reviewing reminders will ensure that this is kept up to date to avoid ‘drift’.
2) Prepare for the “Hit by a Bus” Scenario
Even if your practice manager has no intention of leaving, you need to plan for unexpected situations—disaster planning. It’s a morbid but essential concept: What if your manager were suddenly unable to work, either temporarily or permanently? Would your practice be able to function smoothly, or would your essential services suffer?
A good process management platform protects your practice by ensuring key processes, knowledge, and responsibilities are documented and accessible to the entire team. This way, if something unexpected happens, you have a clear roadmap to keep the business running without missing a beat. The system provides continuity in the face of unforeseen events, ensuring your business is resilient no matter what.
3) Make Knowledge Accessible to Everyone
One of the greatest risks when a manager leaves is that they take critical knowledge with them. If they’ve been handling things in their own way, without documenting their processes or sharing them with others, your team can be left floundering. This creates a bottleneck in operations, which can hurt service quality and team morale.
When knowledge is shared via a process management platform, you ensure that important knowledge is no longer siloed in the minds of one or two people. All protocols, workflows, and standard operating procedures are centralised in a system that’s easily accessible by the entire team. This makes it easier for a new manager to step in and for team members to take over certain tasks without the fear of things falling apart.
4) Seamless Onboarding of a New Manager
Replacing a practice manager can be daunting, especially if the outgoing manager was the go-to person for almost everything. Without clear, documented processes, onboarding a new manager can turn into a lengthy, stressful endeavour.
You need a process management platform which encompasses a team training programme. This will allow you to integrate the new manager seamlessly into your practice. All of your processes are clearly outlined and ready to be incorporated into their training. This ensures they quickly understand how things operate and can hit the ground running, without the long transition periods often required when they have to “figure things out” for themselves.
5) Build a Resilient Team of Interchangeable Cogs
While dynamic, ‘can-do’ personalities can be valuable, it’s dangerous for any business to depend too heavily on any one person. If that person becomes the sole source of essential knowledge, your practice is left vulnerable in their absence.
A team training and process management platform ensures that your team operates as a well-oiled machine, where each member is empowered and knowledgeable enough to step into different roles when needed. By organising and standardising workflows, everyone knows where to find the information they need to perform tasks, reducing your reliance on any one person and creating a more adaptable, resilient team.
6) Master Copies at Your Fingertips
When a practice manager leaves, it’s not uncommon to realise that nobody knows where the latest versions of key documents, protocols, or workflows are stored. Without a system in place, essential updates may be lost or forgotten. A process management system with integrated document management, ensures that master copies (including archived versions) of all documents and protocols are securely stored and readily accessible.
Authorised members of the team can easily retrieve, review, and update these master copies, reducing the confusion and inefficiencies that can arise during transitions. This also ensures that the business continues to function smoothly, regardless of personnel changes.
Conclusion: Plan for Smooth Transitions—Before They Happen
Whether your practice manager is leaving tomorrow or plans to stay with you for the long haul, it’s vital to have processes in place that safeguards your business. Investing in a team training and process management platform helps you avoid disruptions by reducing knowledge silos, defining roles clearly, and making essential information accessible to everyone. This approach not only protects your practice in the event of a sudden departure but also creates a more efficient, resilient team that can handle transitions with ease.
Don’t wait for the unexpected to happen—get your team’s knowledge documented, processes standardised, and future-proof your practice today. If you would like help to manage your processes and to make team training a breeze. Click the button to book a discovery call with Training-Progress and relieve the anxiety of losing your key personnel.