How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?
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Just curious. Discussion Points to follow.
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I do.
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Now - where are you expecting those employees to be employed? what country? This can make a huge difference.
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@Dashrender said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
Now - where are you expecting those employees to be employed? what country? This can make a huge difference.
Not for my question.
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Only three of us? Wow.
So, have either of you found yourselves revisiting your succession plans? Or do you have succession plans?
With so many people going from a cough to RIP in a short time, you have to wonder, "Could I be next?"
This health crisis, makes you think about the strangest things. I have re-read our succession plan and have updated all C-Level passwords. There are a few things I'm going to change, but if I were to kick the bucket, I think all the employees will be able to continue on without me. And that is one of my most important objectives as an owner.
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@JasGot said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
Only three of us? Wow.
So, have either of you found yourselves revisiting your succession plans? Or do you have succession plans?
With so many people going from a cough to RIP in a short time, you have to wonder, "Could I be next?"
This health crisis, makes you think about the strangest things. I have re-read our succession plan and have updated all C-Level passwords. There are a few things I'm going to change, but if I were to kick the bucket, I think all the employees will be able to continue on without me. And that is one of my most important objectives as an owner.
I 2nd what @JasGot is saying to all those business owners out there. From an employee stand point, not having/knowing a succession plan in SMB sucks. Fear in general and of becoming unemployed takes over. Individuals jockey for political position and it is possible a better choice of employee gets passed over.
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@JasGot said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
Only three of us? Wow.
Not surprised. IT isn't logically the people who become business owners. I'm a business owner that went into IT, mostly.
Plus lots of people here work for other people here. The nature of it is that the number of "owners" is very low no matter what in this kind of peer forum because people work together and often the owners aren't the ones that participate. Then add that it is an IT forum, and that not everyone responds... there are more than three, but not many.
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And @Dashrender isn't an owner anymore, used to be. @CCWTech is an owner, though.
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@JasGot said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
So, have either of you found yourselves revisiting your succession plans? Or do you have succession plans?
We have multiple owners (three, now) so only an issue if more than one of us kicks the bucket around the same time. If that were to happen, we have a people manager (Vale) and an engineering manager (Romo) who would take over and be running the show. So we have lots of mitigation layers should we lose one or more people.
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@pmoncho said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
I 2nd what @JasGot is saying to all those business owners out there. From an employee stand point, not having/knowing a succession plan in SMB sucks. Fear in general and of becoming unemployed takes over. Individuals jockey for political position and it is possible a better choice of employee gets passed over.
Definitely lots of scared employees, no question there. We have a dual management chain with two partner companies. So a lot of diversity in revenue and the ability for other management stacks to step in while things stabilize. And our own team has five people in place, any of which could take over if need be.
I think our employees, especially those that have been around for a while, aren't too worried about their jobs. We always do things like pay early to let them get to the banks while they are open, or withhold paychecks till banks open, etc. During the civil uprising some went through, we had people ready to relocate staff to another country. We are an employee-first company, our mission is to be a great place to work, so the idea that our employees are at risk runs pretty counter to our core mission. Of course, nothing protects any of us 100%, but I think our team knows that they don't reasonably get any safer than they are here.
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@scottalanmiller said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
@pmoncho said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
I 2nd what @JasGot is saying to all those business owners out there. From an employee stand point, not having/knowing a succession plan in SMB sucks. Fear in general and of becoming unemployed takes over. Individuals jockey for political position and it is possible a better choice of employee gets passed over.
Definitely lots of scared employees, no question there. We have a dual management chain with two partner companies. So a lot of diversity in revenue and the ability for other management stacks to step in while things stabilize. And our own team has five people in place, any of which could take over if need be.
I think our employees, especially those that have been around for a while, aren't too worried about their jobs. We always do things like pay early to let them get to the banks while they are open, or withhold paychecks till banks open, etc. During the civil uprising some went through, we had people ready to relocate staff to another country. We are an employee-first company, our mission is to be a great place to work, so the idea that our employees are at risk runs pretty counter to our core mission. Of course, nothing protects any of us 100%, but I think our team knows that they don't reasonably get any safer than they are here.
That is a pretty cool mission. I wish more companies would feel like "I am glad you decided to work here today" vs "You should be thankful I have a business to give you a job."
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I think you need to have mitigation plans for key man not just for the longevity of your company and your heirs, but I've been asked more than a couple of times if we have plans in effect in case God forbid, that I catch this and fall over. Yes - its very important for employees and clients that you have a proper succession plan in place and I've had some conversations about that already in light of what all is going on. Then realized, I should have done this long ago ... what happens if I get hit by a car crossing the road ... things need to proceed and a plan needs to be in place.
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@krzykat said in How may of you own your IT business and have more than a handful of employees?:
I think you need to have mitigation plans for key man not just for the longevity of your company and your heirs, but I've been asked more than a couple of times if we have plans in effect in case God forbid, that I catch this and fall over. Yes - its very important for employees and clients that you have a proper succession plan in place and I've had some conversations about that already in light of what all is going on. Then realized, I should have done this long ago ... what happens if I get hit by a car crossing the road ... things need to proceed and a plan needs to be in place.
Romo is my key man replacement. He'd need to hire more people to assist with capacity problems, but key functionality would not be disrupted.
