A company's most expensive saving: depending on one person

Depending on a single person for critical functions may look like a saving, but it is a risk the company has never provisioned for. When that person is away, the cost hits all at once.

## Monday, nine o'clock, everything stops

On a Monday at **9:00**, an important process came to a halt. **Fourteen people** joined a video call and none of them could find the instructions or knew who was able to make a decision. The only person who knew the details was on holiday.

The previous Friday, the costs meeting had concluded there was no need to hire anyone else. One person was enough to serve the client, handle incidents and keep deliveries on track. What looked like a saving was unbudgeted debt.

## Efficiency and fragility get confused

Companies reward the one who fixes things. The one who is always there, the one who always knows. And they call it efficiency. It is not. It is fragility with a coat of varnish.

The problem is not that someone knows a lot. It is that only one person knows it. That knowledge in a single head is a single point of failure.

## The indispensable one loses too

Whoever keeps the work going ends up being called for every emergency. Not always for the decisions that could prevent it. The company needs them to put out fires, not to build the system that would prevent the blaze.

Depending on someone is costly on both sides. For the company, because one day that person goes on holiday. For the employee, because they end up burned out.