When I worked for other people, I learned that the person with the biggest title wasn’t always the person keeping the place together. Sometimes it was the employee who knew where everything was, remembered every client’s peculiarities, and could fix a problem before anyone else understood what happened. That employee was invaluable. Making the entire business dependent on that employee was a mistake.
For a third-party administration firm, that person might know every testing exception, every payroll contact, and every promise made to a plan sponsor over the last fifteen years. Everyone else just asks that person. It works beautifully until that person quits, gets sick, or decides to take a vacation without answering the phone.
Then the owner discovers that having information somewhere in the office isn’t the same as having information the staff can actually find and use.
I’m a solo practitioner, so I understand that small businesses don’t have unlimited resources or an extra employee sitting around waiting to replace someone. But you don’t need a huge staff to document procedures, maintain useful client notes, and make sure another person understands how essential work gets done. You need the discipline to stop treating documentation as something you’ll get around to when things are quiet. Things are never quiet.
Your best employee should help train others. That doesn’t diminish their importance. It makes their knowledge more valuable because the entire organization benefits from it.
Plan sponsors hire your firm expecting dependable service. They shouldn’t discover that your ability to deliver it depends on whether one particular employee is available.
Appreciate that employee. Pay them fairly. Give them reasons to stay. But build a business that can function when they aren’t there. Otherwise, you don’t have an operation. You have one person holding an operation together, and that’s a dangerous arrangement.