20 Tips To Reduce Risk

Let’s play a game.

You win the lottery. Real life-changing money. How long are you sticking around your workplace?

Are you gone immediately, never to be seen again? Do you give an official but quick two weeks’ notice? 

Maybe you’re deeply values-aligned to the work or have a significant role in the organization, so you take more time to ease the transition before your exit. Or perhaps you take a break and come back later to contribute on a volunteer basis.

But for many people, the honest answer is probably: Byyyeeee, see you never!!

You ride off into the sunset, revive creative endeavours that you haven’t had time for in years, sleep for days, travel the world.

(And if you’re my kind of people, you also spend time contributing to your communities, look for ways to give back and build others up, and align your life to purpose and joy).

For organizations, that scenario reveals a real risk: all the knowledge, relationships, and experience someone brought to the table – gone.

People don’t win the lottery every day. But they do leave for other opportunities. They burn out. They go on leave due to illness, caregiving responsibilities, or family emergencies. Sometimes they leave suddenly. Sometimes gradually. Either way, the impact can be significant.

So the real question becomes: how are you planning for that?

Below are 20 practical ways to reduce risk and build resilience, ideally as part of your annual strategic planning and ongoing team development.

SUCCESSION PLANNING AS A LEADERSHIP PRACTICE

When key people leave, organizations don’t just lose capacity; they lose institutional memory, decision context, and informal leadership. Work gets bottlenecked. Remaining staff stretch further and become more likely to want to leave themselves.

Succession planning isn’t about pessimism or replacement. It’s about acknowledging reality: we’re all human, lives are complex, and no organization benefits from knowledge being held by one exhausted person.

Before diving in, one important caveat: capacity matters.

You don’t need to do all of this at once. In fact, trying to do everything is a recipe for more strain. Take an honest look at your own capacity and that of your teams, then prioritize a few actions that will make the biggest difference right now. Sustainable leadership is about sequencing, not heroics.

RISK REDUCTION: PLANNING WITHOUT PANIC 

These practices focus on reducing organizational vulnerability when someone leaves (temporarily or permanently) while making work more transparent and shared.

• Identify Key Roles and Skills: Determine which roles are critical for operations and what skills are essential for their success.

• Document Processes and Decisions: Maintain up-to-date, accessible records of workflows, key decisions, and organizational knowledge.

• Cross-Training Employees: Ensure multiple team members are trained in critical roles to prevent disruptions if someone leaves suddenly.

• Develop Emergency Transition Plans: Create clear, step-by-step plans for handling sudden departures, including interim leadership and role coverage.

• Create Knowledge Repositories: Use shared drives, wikis, or internal knowledge bases to store institutional knowledge in a structured way.

• Conduct Regular Knowledge Transfer Sessions: Hold debrief meetings when key staff exit to document insights and recommendations.

• Ensure Role Clarity and Documentation: Make sure that job descriptions, responsibilities, and expectations are current for each role, to ease transitions.

• Monitor Employee Turnover Risks: Track trends in staff departures and identify potential retention issues before they become critical.

• Legal and Compliance Considerations: Ensure that succession planning aligns with employment laws, organizational policies, and governance structures.

• Board and Leadership Continuity: For nonprofits, ensure board member transitions are planned with staggered terms and mentorship for incoming members.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT: BUILD CAPACITY BEFORE YOU NEED IT

Organizations that rely on a few people to “just know” everything are built on invisible labour, when they should be structured on sustainable systems.             

Staff development practices focus on growing people and the organization’s long-term resilience.

• Identify and Develop Future Leaders: Establish mentorship and leadership development programs to prepare high-potential employees for advancement.

• Offer Growth Opportunities: Encourage internal promotions and skill-building to retain employees and prevent external recruitment gaps.

• Encourage Institutional Mentorship: Pair senior employees with newer staff to facilitate knowledge sharing and career development.

• Provide Ongoing Training: Invest in professional development, certifications, and leadership training to keep skills current.

• Create Career Pathways: Show employees clear advancement opportunities within the organization to improve retention.

• Encourage a Learning Culture: Support knowledge-sharing practices, such as internal workshops and team retrospectives.

• Recognize and Reward Contributions: Acknowledge employees who contribute to knowledge retention and mentor others to facilitate a culture of shared learning.

• Regular Feedback and Performance Reviews: Help employees understand their strengths and areas for growth, aligning them with long-term organizational needs.

• Foster Psychological Safety: Ensure employees feel safe to share knowledge, ask questions, and contribute ideas without fear of job insecurity.

• Succession Plan for Teams, Not Just Individuals: Develop a pipeline approach where teams collectively build knowledge and leadership capacity instead of relying on single individuals.

Succession planning often gets framed as a contingency exercise; something you do just in case. But at its best, it’s an act of care: for people, for mission, and for the future of the organization.

When knowledge is shared, leadership is distributed, and growth is intentional, organizations become less fragile, and people avoid burnout.

You don’t need to tackle all 20 of these ideas. Start with two or three that feel doable. Build from there. Your people (present and future!) will thank you.

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