Please answewr the questions in bold!!
Please seperate each response.
1. When a major U.S. city recognized that more than 70 percent of its IT staff was eligible to retire within a three-year period, it immediately implemented a plan to start bringing in new IT staff and pairing them with experienced veterans. Because the city’s IT systems were almost exclusively developed in-house over 20 years, organizational IT knowledge was critical, and some required skills could not be obtained on the open market. Does this issue suggest another area that should be addressed in crisis management and contingency planning? In which plan or document should this issue have been addressed already?
2. Agree or Disagree? Why or Why Not?
Small companies are perhaps more vulnerable than large organizations to the loss of key employees and the resulting loss of company knowledge. What steps can a small company take to mitigate this potential loss?
There are several steps that small companies can use to mitigate potential loss, and this can include a continuous investment in developing employees, since many employees always look to grow in their career and move on to the next phase in their career path, so it makes sense if small companies encourage employee’s professional growth and development. Doing so will enable employees to remain loyal to the company since they are getting the value of enriching their knowledge and shaping their career progression.
Also, small companies need to attract employees with better competitive benefits, like good retirement plan, 401k matching, flexible remote work schedule, tuition reimbursement benefit, great health care benefits, as this reduces the loss of employees, if they are convinced, they are getting the best deal and benefit from their current employer, there won’t be any reason for an employee to hop around jobs.
Also, many companies put more emphasis only on the base salary and don’t really bother to improve on benefits, while forgetting the facts that majority of their employees have families to cater for and they are not relying solely on just the base pay, so a good benefit program will go a long way in retaining talents. Employees can sign up for good medical or dental care with the company which covers their family’s medical expenses including their kids etc.
Employers should also promote a work culture where they get to become familiar with their employees on a personal level and not just all about work, sometimes, employees like to feel appreciated for their had work and knowing that the company cares about their wellbeing, says a lot about the company’s culture, so managers should be trained to ensure they check in with employees and assist in any way possible, even though some issues are very personal and employees might not be willing to disclose personal issues with their managers, but having a manager who is passionate to care enough about his direct reports and extending support anytime possible goes a long way with retaining talents and reducing the risk of loosing potential employees. Employees are humans and if you treat humans with compassion and care, they never forget the good deeds. Sometimes, it is not really about the money or how well paid you are at a current company, if that same company has a toxic work environment, you are still going to leave that organization someday, to a different company with better work environment that treats employees with respect and dignity that maintains high moral standards and work culture even though it means taking a pay cut for a new role. (I have seen and withnessed this happen in reality/real life scenario).
In addition to key executives, some positions in a company can be considered critical to its continuing success. What will happen if a network administrator leaves? What customers or contacts would the company lose if a key sales representative leaves? What other positions can you name where a loss would have a potentially significant negative effect on the company?
In addition to guaranteeing network security, resolving problems, and overseeing system upgrades, a network administrator is essential to the upkeep of the organization’s IT infrastructure. The departure of a network administrator may result in interruptions to network services, heightened susceptibility to cyberattacks, and protracted troubleshooting of technical problems, all of which could compromise data security and overall productivity.
“Cross-training is an essential duty because it allows others to temporarily take over essential responsibilities in the case of an emergency that forces employees to leave their positions. While cross-training can be accomplished through many of the formal training methods, it typically takes place through one-on-one coaching and on-the-job training” – (Whitman & Mattord, 2020).
Small organizations should practice the act of implementing cross training in their environment for roles that are critical to the organization operations, like Security Architecture, Network engineering., system administration, etc. so incase of any emergency, there will be backup for already trained employees to step into those roles and pick up from the pieces. They can also implement job rotation as well which involves, “the movement of employees from one position to another so they can develop additional skills and abilities”. – (Whitman & Mattord, 2020).
Also, when key sales representatives leaves a company, there will be loss of high value customer or contacts from the sales representative, as sometimes, this sales representative are really good at their job with developing personal rapport and business relationship with their clients/customers, so even if a company is able to get a replacement to fill in the same role, it might be difficult to recover that lost relationship that was already built up by the previous key sales representative, and the new sales representative as to start from the ground up in building trust and a new working relationship with the customer which isn’t possible but might take time and commitment to win a trust of a customer.
A vital role where a loss would have a potentially significant negative effect on the company is the role as a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) since it involves budgeting, assessing risk management, working on financial reporting, etc. so a loss of a Chief Financial Officer can cause issues as the company might face financial reporting errors, disruption of financial processes, and an influence on strategic financial decision-making could result from this. Failure to comply with regulations, monetary losses, and a decline in investor trust could all arise from these issues.
References:
Whitman, M. E., & Mattord, H. J. (2020). Principles of Incident Response & Disaster Recovery (3rd ed.). Cengage.
