When we talk about succession planning we immediately think about business owners but we forget about key and long-serving staff. The fact is, we sometimes take such people for granted and assume that like us, they will be in there for the long haul.

We are very grateful for their service but we fail to consider the vast amount of knowledge and technical ability possessed by them and, it's only when they've gone that we realise the vast hole they can leave in the organisation. This is particularly true of some of the craft based organisations that are still using machinery and techniques that were used in the last century and in some cases for centuries before that.

I know of one company that require techniques that are not taught today and so filled some of their production capacity by recruiting from Eastern Europe who used these techniques because they could not afford the replacement modern machinery. However, Brexit has made that form of recruitment more difficult so they have had to try and train up their own people. The problem is that there is a lack of young people wanting to enter these industries because there are more attractive jobs elsewhere.

So is there a solution?

Clearly there are a number of options including:

• Training other staff in these techniques so gaps can be filled in the short-term.
• Forging links with FE Colleges and other training providers to try and attract some new blood.
• Diversification so that the business is not as reliant on these skills so the impact of key staff departures is not as great.
• Giving older people the opportunity to retrain into these industries.
• Research and development into alternative processes to be able to produce the products or services a different way.

Clearly this involves some investment in time and money by the businesses so effected but that cost can be spread if the planning is started early enough rather than when these key people leave and you have a big hole to fill.