Delegation and succession planning

There is a word for the sort of organisation with one key member of staff, in whose absence the whole thing grinds to a halt: doomed. In the short term, they will take holidays, sick leave, attend meetings; and in the long term they will leave or retire. A good warning sign is how often someone who is out of the office is phoned on their mobile.

This often happens because a dependency culture has grown up (perhaps unconciously reinforced by the key manager who insists on doing everything). A healthy organisation should be able to cope with temporary staff absences; if yours can't, you should be looking at sharing skills and knowledge more widely.