“But there’s another kind of irreplaceable employee — those who hoard information and techniques so that getting rid of them is impractical. Take all steps necessary to make these irreplaceable employees replaceable. Then, as soon as you can, replace them with the desirable sort of irreplaceable employee.”
Many managers and “efficiency experts” have tried this with me to no avail. It’s not that I am “hoarding” things, its that even if they ask me to train other people and teach them, they can never find anyone who is actually capable of absorbing all the things that I could teach. So it doesn’t work. Maybe if they hired five employees for me to train, they could each grasp 20% of my specialized knowledge, but so far they haven’t hit on that strategy.
Too many times you put the diagram down in front of them and watch their eyes glaze over, regardless of how critical or how simple it is.
"Just take care of it." stops being a statement of delegation and changes in meaning to; "This is beyond me. I don't want to deal with it. Don't bring it up to me anymore."
> even if they ask me to train other people and teach them,
> they can never find anyone who is actually capable of
> absorbing all the things that I could teach
So, if you _really_ cared, you could document it or take a video (screen capture, combined with your audio explaining why you are taking each step) while walking through the process. Do it several times, especially when there are exceptions to the normal process - then when you leave they could theoretically hire a contractor.
You have to ask yourself how much you care about the consequences to your co-workers, the company and/or country if you became incapacitated or ill or find a better job. Because one day that’s going to happen.
If you are a Christian keep in mind, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”.