How to Fill the Hole When an Employee Resigns

If an employee quits, leaving you with either a skills gap or with not enough people in your company to get your day-to-day projects complete, you may be wondering how you – and your company – will cope.

If you’re a small firm and a departing employee takes some special skills or knowledge with him or her is an obvious example of the importance of cross-training. Train employees how to do others’ positions and this skills gap won’t occur should one or more employees leave.

If the hole isn’t so much in skills as in the number of personnel needed to serve customers adequately/make enough product, etc., then there are a few things you can do. Read below for a short list of solutions:

  • Contact retirees to see if they can come in for a few days. Chances are they still have fond memories of working for you and also may welcome the chance to make a few extra dollars.
  • Depending on the skills needed, contact your local college to see if you can arrange for an internship for a college student. This could be paid or unpaid. If unpaid, you’ll have to make sure the intern’s work is worthy of college credit. Also, if you want to not pay the intern, the intern cannot perform sales duties of any kind (make money for you). Please note, that this may not be a quick fix for you because many colleges insist that internships begin and end in sync with college semesters.
  • Call in a temporary/recruiting service to help you get up to full staffing levels until you’re able to hire one or more replacements. When you no longer need the individual to fill the hole, the staffing firm removes him or her from the assignment. You don’t incur unemployment insurance costs (the worker is employed by the staffing service, not by your company) and you don’t need to worry about how to keep the worker busy when you have no work for him or her to do.

Staffing firms also can be helpful in helping work continue at needed levels when employees take vacations, go on maternity leaves, long vacations, medical emergencies, and even military duty.

Another reason to use staffing firms: they can be a great way to “try out” potential employees. You can bring a worker on for about 90 days and if, at the end of the three months, both you and the employee agree the match is a good fit, you can hire the person onto your own payroll.

Conversely, if the individual isn’t a good fit, you can contact the staffing service. The person will be removed quickly and the staffing firm will find you another individual to “audition.”

If you need help filling in gaps when employees leave – for whatever reason – contact Arrow Staffing. We’ve been helping Inland Empire companies find terrific workers for temporary, temp-to-hire and direct-hire opportunities for more than 40 years. Contact us today.

If you are looking for staffing agencies in Riverside CA, contact us today.

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