It usually arrives on a Friday afternoon. Your most experienced property manager, or the sales administrator who quietly holds every campaign together, has accepted another role. Four weeks’ notice.
By Monday, the instinct is to fill the seat. Fast, and on whatever terms it takes.
The panic hire
In a recent conversation with Elite Agent, Jellis Craig CEO Andrew McCann, who leads a group of 45 Victorian offices and around 1,200 people, admitted he used to take every resignation as a personal affront. Now he stays calm, because the business can usually cover what’s gone.
Asked what to do after losing key people with no recruitment pipeline, his first move isn’t to recruit. It’s to look inside the business and ask “Who can step up?”, then work out how the team covers the role, and the revenue, for the next 90 days while the business regroups.
He’s just as clear about the alternative. Rush a hire on different terms from everyone else, and you damage the organisation:
“As soon as you’ve got separate rules for separate people in an organisation, you just create a rod for your own back.”
It’s sound advice. But it relies on one condition that many agencies don’t meet: there has to be someone who can step up.
Why most agencies can’t cover the gap
A 45-office group has depth to draw on. A typical 20 to 30 person agency often doesn’t. One property manager runs one portfolio. One person really knows how the end-of-month process gets done. One sales administrator knows the status of every vendor’s campaign. Their processes live in their heads and their inboxes.
That’s key-person dependency, and a resignation is simply the moment it becomes visible. The cost shows up in four places:
- Client service. Landlords and vendors notice slower responses first.
- Your remaining team. They absorb the overflow, and the burnout risks becoming the next resignation.
- Knowledge. Undocumented processes walk out the door with the person.
- Recruitment. A rushed hire on pressured terms, which is exactly what McCann warns against.
Build cover in before the gap opens
The fix isn’t a better-managed panic. It’s building planned redundancy into your structure while things are calm.
| Reactive: after a resignation | Planned: built in ahead of time | |
|---|---|---|
| Who covers the work | Whoever has capacity that week | A trained team member who already knows the process |
| Process knowledge | Leaves with the person | Documented and shared across the team |
| Client experience | Slower responses, missed follow-ups | Continuity, so clients barely notice |
| Recruitment | Rushed, on pressured terms | Considered, on your terms and timeline |
| Remaining team | Absorbing the overflow | Supported |
One practical way agencies do this is by embedding an offshore team member alongside their key roles: someone recruited, trained in your systems and working your processes every day, not someone found in a hurry after the resignation letter lands. When someone does move on, “who can step up?” already has an answer.
This is also why the engagement model matters. A freelancer juggling several clients isn’t redundancy. They’re another key person you can lose. An employed, managed team member, with HR support, backup and continuity planning around them, is what genuine cover looks like.
A five-minute test
Pick the role in your agency you’d least like to lose, and ask three questions:
- If this person resigned tomorrow, who would do their work on Monday?
- Is the way they do it written down anywhere?
- Would your clients notice within a week?
If any answer makes you uneasy, that’s the role to plan around first, before a resignation forces the decision for you.
Why we build cover in before it’s needed
- ✓Resignations stop being emergencies
- ✓Process knowledge stays in the business, not in one person’s head
- ✓Clients get the same service whoever is on leave or moving on
- ✓Your onshore team isn’t left absorbing the overflow
- ✓You hire on your terms, not under pressure
Not sure which role in your agency carries the most risk? Talk to the REassist team and we’ll help you work out where a resignation would hurt most, and how to build cover in before it happens.
