If you have worked in an organization for very long, you probably know Sarah.
Sarah is the person everyone calls when they cannot find an answer, need an approval, get locked out of a system, or encounter something that does not fit neatly within their normal responsibilities. She knows how the organization really works, including the tasks and decisions that were never formally assigned to anyone.
Sarah is both the source of information and the bottleneck.
In a small business, Sarah may be the owner or manager. Employees cannot complete routine work without asking for approval because they have never been given the authority or framework to make those decisions themselves. The owner is trying to manage the business while also setting up computers, granting access, coordinating onboarding, answering routine questions, and handling every task that falls between established roles.
The problem is not that Sarah is too knowledgeable or valuable. The problem is that the organization has allowed important knowledge, responsibilities, and decision authority to exist only through Sarah.
The clearest warning sign is what happens when Sarah is unavailable
Not every dependency can be eliminated, particularly in a small business. Certain decisions will always require an owner, senior leader, or technical specialist.
The concern is not the occasional unusual question. It is routine work that repeatedly stops because one particular person is unavailable.
Common warning signs include:
- Employees regularly contact the person while they are on vacation or taking time off.
- Work is placed on hold until that person returns.
- Only one person can approve a routine request or grant access to an essential system.
- Employees know who to ask but cannot explain the underlying process.
- New employees depend on the same person for every part of onboarding.
- Tasks that fall between departments automatically end up with that person.
- Leaders openly ask, “What would we do if Sarah left?”
If you are asking that final question, you already know there is a problem.
I have personally been the person who could not disconnect from work. After the birth of my first child, while I was still at the hospital, I received a phone call from work with a question.
That phone call was not evidence of my importance. It was evidence that the organization did not have another reliable way to get the answer.
Strong employees often hide weak organizational structure
Key-person dependency rarely develops because an organization intentionally decides that only one person should understand an important function.
It usually develops gradually.
A strong, capable employee sees something that needs to be done and handles it. When another unassigned task appears, that employee handles it too. Other employees learn that calling this person is the fastest route to an answer, and leadership becomes comfortable knowing that the work is getting done.
Over time, the employee becomes the catch-all for tasks that nobody else owns.
This can make the organization appear healthier than it is. Work continues, questions get answered, and problems are resolved. But the underlying system depends on one person’s memory, availability, and willingness to keep absorbing additional responsibilities.
The employee is compensating for a lack of structure.
A stronger organization identifies who owns each recurring responsibility, how the work should be performed, and which decisions employees can make independently. When tasks fall between departments, leadership assigns ownership rather than allowing those tasks to accumulate around the person most likely to prevent them from being dropped.
Start with the work the organization cannot afford to lose
Solving key-person dependency does not mean documenting every action an employee takes.
The first step is identifying the responsibilities, knowledge, access, relationships, and decisions that would create significant disruption if the person suddenly became unavailable.
Ask questions such as:
- What work would stop immediately?
- What could continue for a few days but eventually become a problem?
- Which systems could no one else access?
- Which recurring approvals depend on this person?
- What deadlines or obligations exist only in this person’s memory?
- Which vendors, customers, or regulators rely on this individual relationship?
- What decisions could another employee make if the boundaries were clearer?
This review separates genuinely critical responsibilities from tasks that are merely convenient to route through the same person.
The goal is not to recreate everything Sarah knows. It is to ensure the organization can continue its essential work without requiring Sarah to remain constantly available.
Build a practical continuity book
One useful approach is to have the key employee develop a continuity book.
The direction can be simple:
Give us the basic information we would need if you sailed around the world starting tomorrow.
A continuity book should explain the critical parts of the role without attempting to record every possible situation. Depending on the position, it may include:
- Core responsibilities
- Recurring daily, weekly, monthly, and annual tasks
- Essential systems and the process for obtaining access
- Important internal and external contacts
- Routine approval responsibilities
- Common exceptions and how they are handled
- Records, files, and other sources of essential information
- Situations that require escalation
This does not need to become a massive manual. In fact, excessive documentation may make the information harder to maintain and less likely to be used.
The continuity book should provide enough structure that another capable employee can understand what must be done, where to find the necessary information, and when a decision needs to be elevated.
Documentation is not continuity until someone else can use it
A continuity book sitting on a shelf does not solve key-person dependency.
The organization must select and train an appropriate backup. That person does not need to learn every aspect of the role, but they should be able to perform the functions most critical to continued operations.
Then the organization should test the system.
Have the backup complete a recurring task using the documented process. Ask them to work through a common exception. Determine whether they can find the necessary information, access the required systems, understand their authority, and produce a reasonably consistent result.
This is where weaknesses in the documentation become visible.
Some organizations create systems that are too rigid. The instructions describe only one ideal sequence and provide no guidance when conditions change. Other organizations create systems that are too loose, leaving employees uncertain about responsibilities, decisions, or acceptable results.
A useful process provides enough structure for consistency while leaving reasonable room for judgment. It should account for the normal work as well as the predictable curveballs that come with it.
If the backup cannot perform the work without calling Sarah, the dependency has not been resolved.
Give employees guardrails, not an approval requirement for every decision
Key-person dependency is often caused by unclear decision authority.
Employees may have the knowledge and ability to complete a task but still believe they need approval before proceeding. The manager then becomes involved in routine decisions that could have been handled elsewhere.
The solution is not unlimited authority. Employees need clear guardrails that explain:
- Which decisions they can make
- What outcome they are expected to achieve
- What limits they must remain within
- Which situations require approval
- Who serves as the alternate when the primary decision-maker is unavailable
Good guardrails allow employees to handle routine work confidently while preserving escalation for decisions involving unusual risk, cost, safety, compliance, or business consequences.
Without those boundaries, employees will usually choose the safest personal option: call Sarah.
Frame continuity as support for the key employee
A strong employee may understandably hear “reduce our dependency on you” as “make you replaceable.”
That is the wrong way to approach the conversation.
The better message is that the organization wants the employee to focus on the work they were hired to perform instead of carrying every collateral responsibility that accumulated because they were capable enough to handle it.
Continuity planning should allow valuable employees to take time off without constant calls, spend more time on higher-value responsibilities, and stop serving as the default solution for every unassigned task.
Sharing knowledge does not make the employee less valuable. It allows the organization to use that employee’s abilities more effectively.
The goal is resilience, not replacing Sarah
Every organization will rely more heavily on certain people. Small businesses cannot create a fully staffed backup for every position, and specialized knowledge cannot always be transferred quickly.
The objective is to soften the impact.
Identify the work that cannot stop. Assign ownership. Document the essentials. Clarify decision authority. Train a backup. Test whether the backup can actually perform the work, and improve the system based on what happens during that test.
Most importantly, stop using Sarah as the process.
When an organization turns essential knowledge and responsibilities into a practical system, Sarah can finally take a day off—and the work can continue without her.