After a week or two, Jonas will return and work will resume as usual. However, Ieva Kėvalaitytė, head of the talent acquisition team at Manpower, suggests asking a different question in such situations: what if Jonas doesn’t come back?
“One of the clearest signals that an organization is overly dependent on individual employees is when work simply stops or it becomes unclear who should take over when a person goes on vacation, falls ill, or leaves the organization. Phrases like ‘only Jonas knows how this works’ or ‘let’s wait until the responsible person returns’ should also raise alarms,” notes I. Kėvalaitytė.
Vacation – just a rehearsal
Summer vacations can serve as a kind of safe rehearsal for organizational resilience. The employee’s absence is usually known in advance, so there is time to hand over tasks, distribute responsibilities, inform clients, and ensure that critical processes do not stop.
Therefore, if even a planned absence of a few weeks causes confusion, according to the head of Manpower’s talent acquisition team, it should be seen as a warning.
“Short-term planned vacations usually cause the least challenges for companies because they can prepare for them. Longer sick leaves are more complicated – it’s not always clear how long the person will be unable to work, making resource planning harder. The biggest challenge is often the unexpected departure of an employee, especially if accumulated knowledge, client relationships, or specific competencies leave the organization with them,” says I. Kėvalaitytė.
Thus, vacations reveal whether colleagues can cover for each other and where much greater risks lie – when processes, knowledge, or relationships still rest on one person’s shoulders.
What does an employee’s absence say about the organization?
In some organizations, an employee’s annual vacation or unexpected sick leave does not cause major problems. In others, it becomes a stressful event requiring urgent and uncomfortable decisions. The employees’ own feelings also vary: some leave for vacation or take sick leave calmly, while others feel guilty, worry about the burden left on colleagues, or even feel the need to justify themselves.
“This is influenced by organizational culture, managers’ attitudes toward employee well-being, work-life balance, rest, and how sustainably and efficiently processes are arranged. Employee vacations clearly show whether resources are allocated properly. There is a saying that a good company leader is one whose departure would not cause the company to collapse. The same rule applies to other employees,” comments I. Kėvalaitytė.
According to her, the vacation season primarily highlights two things: whether the team has enough human resources at all and whether there are people in the organization for whom, if they cannot work, there would be no competent colleague or plan B to take over their functions.
If employees are already lacking during normal times, people work overtime or constantly balance on the edge of maximum workload, covering for another colleague can become a difficult and destabilizing task for the team.
The size of the organization matters here but does not automatically protect from problems. In small companies, one person often has more and more diverse responsibilities, so when they leave, there may simply be no colleague able to take over all functions. Then several people have to cover. Larger organizations usually have more specialists in the same field, making it easier to distribute work.
“Still, the size of the organization alone does not guarantee resilience. I have seen large companies where certain critical knowledge was concentrated in the hands of one specialist, so their absence caused quite a few disruptions,” says I. Kėvalaitytė.
The nature of the work itself is also important. If the person responsible for the company’s general email is on vacation, emails can be forwarded to a colleague who will temporarily respond only to the most urgent inquiries. But if there is no one responsible for specific technical equipment maintenance, there may be no one to take over those functions.
“Standardized and clearly described processes are easier to redistribute – whether we talk about production or office work. Greater challenges arise when the work requires specific knowledge, long-term client relationships, or unique competencies,” explains the interviewee.
How does an “irreplaceable” person appear in an organization?
An employee does not become “irreplaceable” overnight. Usually, such dependence forms gradually and almost unnoticed.
“Critical knowledge concentrated in one person’s hands usually happens not because of bad intentions but due to everyday rush. Organizations focus on immediate results, so documentation, process descriptions, or colleague training are postponed. Over time, it turns out that a lot of specific knowledge and experience is stored in one employee’s memory,” says I. Kėvalaitytė.
This is not a rare problem. According to various surveys, more than 70% of organizations admit to having at least one employee whose unexpected departure would significantly affect daily operations. In business, such dependence is called key person risk – when too much important knowledge or responsibility is concentrated in the hands of one or a few people.
According to the interviewee, employees themselves consciously or unconsciously contribute to becoming “irreplaceable” – being the sole expert in a certain field can provide a greater sense of security and importance in the organization. However, in the long term, this situation is risky for both sides. For the company, it means dependence on one person, and for the employee, it becomes increasingly difficult to step back from work.
Physically in Thailand, mentally in the office in Lithuania
This dependence is especially visible during vacations. The employee seems to be resting but checks email, replies to messages, calls colleagues, or waits to see if a problem arises that only they can solve.
Research shows that not everyone manages to completely disconnect from work during vacations: in a 2024 survey by Movchan Agency of 2,000 adult US residents, 54% said they work during vacations, and 63% feel anxious if they do not check work-related messages during that time.
I. Kėvalaitytė notes that such anxiety can be experienced by both managers and employees whose pay partly depends on individual results.
“A manager’s anxiety may stem not only from distrust of the team but also from a sense of responsibility, a habit of controlling processes, or difficulty delegating decisions. This harms not only the team but also the manager themselves, who was physically in Thailand but mentally spent the entire vacation wandering around the office in Lithuania,” the interviewee smiles.
A different dilemma arises for employees whose income directly depends on individual results. If a person loses part of their bonus due to lower results during a vacation month, there may be a temptation to “kill two birds with one stone” – to vacation and at the same time not lose connection with clients and work.
Therefore, I. Kėvalaitytė points out, one should not automatically conclude that every person who checks email during vacation does so because of poor organizational culture. Personal inclination, sense of responsibility, or the pay system may also influence this.
“Still, there are organizations where employee rest is not valued as a necessary condition for long-term productivity but as a disruption to operations. In such an environment, it is naturally harder for a person to completely disconnect from work,” she adds.
How can an organization become independent of one person?
First, according to I. Kėvalaitytė, critical processes must be documented, and information should be accessible to more than one person. Important contacts, work history, or specific knowledge should not remain only in the employee’s head or computer.
Another measure is cross-training, where at least several team members know how to perform the most important functions of their colleagues. This does not mean everyone must know everything, but critical organizational functions should not depend on just one person.
“When knowledge is kept not in the employee’s head or personal notes but in shared systems, it is much easier to take over. The most resilient organizations are those that design processes so their operations do not depend on one person,” says the interviewee.
According to I. Kėvalaitytė, much also depends on how prepared the organization is in advance for different employee absence scenarios. The biggest challenge usually arises from a situation for which there is no plan.
“Proper internal process hygiene would be to have a clear procedure for different situations – planned short-term absence, longer sick leave, or employee departure. For smaller organizations, this may sound like excessive bureaucracy, but from experience, I can say that such a one-time investment pays off many times over later. When everyone knows the planned procedure and the workflow for handing over tasks in advance, an employee’s absence no longer causes such a big challenge,” notes the interviewee.
From the recruitment market perspective, she also notices another trend – organizations try to have external partners or a base of “warm” potential candidates in advance. This allows faster response if an employee’s absence is prolonged or they unexpectedly leave the organization.
The goal is not to make a good specialist less important. It is important for the organization to ensure that even a very valuable person’s temporary or permanent absence does not paralyze its operations.
Are “irreplaceable” employees decreasing in Lithuanian organizations?
According to I. Kėvalaitytė, although Lithuanian organizations are becoming more resilient, the problem of “irreplaceable” employees remains.
“In recent years, many companies have paid more attention to process standardization, automation, digitization, knowledge management, and strengthening managerial competencies. The pandemic period also influenced this, reminding many organizations how quickly circumstances can change,” she notes.
However, in smaller companies and narrow competency areas, one person often bears a large share of responsibility and knowledge. This is especially relevant in technical, IT, and engineering positions.
More and more managers understand that an employee’s ability to go on vacation and truly not work during that time is not a luxury.
“The ability to completely disconnect from work is one of the best indicators showing how mature, resilient, and ready an organization is to operate even when temporarily losing key team members,” says the head of Manpower’s talent acquisition team.
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