It’s a familiar story among managers in corporate America these days. A member of their team quits early in the year. The manager goes to their boss for what should be a routine approval to post the job for a replacement and the response is, “sorry, no backfills.”
The manager explains that this role is critical to the team’s success and eliminating it will cause serious hardship to other employees and negatively impact performance.
Once again, the answer is, “no backfills.” The manager is told that the CEO, or some other person near the top of the totem pole, must approve all new headcount. “It’s not going to happen,” the manager is told.
“But wait,” the manager pleads, “this isn’t new headcount. This job was included in the budget plan which was approved in December, and we are still in the first quarter.”
“No backfills, figure it out,” the boss says, in a tone that makes it clear the conversation is over.
I’ve been on both ends of this conversation during my career: the line manager lobbying for approval to hire a replacement and the boss rejecting the request. Neither side is much fun. Everybody wants to be part of a business in growth mode. And any decent manager understands that asking shrinking teams to take on more work is a morale killer.
Headcount is always a tough ask. Leaders and managers, myself included during my days in corporate work, pride themselves on their ability to both secure more heads and protect the ones they have. But because headcount usually is the biggest line item in the budget, it is an obvious place to look for expense savings.
Yet, the no backfills conversation seems to be happening both more often and earlier than ever. I’m struck by how many people I talk to who are dealing with it even though we aren’t out of Q1 yet.
Typically, most managers are asked to start putting together business plans and budgets for the upcoming year in Q3. They are given guidance on goals and management expectations, including guidance around headcount. In most cases, final plans are submitted and approved by senior management in Q4.
When a manager is told “no backfills” when a team member leaves in Q1 it begs the obvious question: if the company didn’t want to fund the role, why not have that conversation during the budget process? It would’ve given their managers time to reconsider their plans and present other options.
Under such circumstances it’s hard for the manager not to feel like they are the victim of a bait and switch. They aligned with senior leadership on goals, and the resources required to hit those goals. But as soon as the chance presents itself, senior leadership rolls out the “no backfills” policy to trim expenses with no corresponding downward shift in expectations.
And it’s fair for managers to wonder if the person sitting in the C-suite who just made this decision really appreciates the real value of the coordinator who sits ten levels down from them on the org chart. While senior leadership busies themselves with a relentless pace of meetings and travel, it is the coordinators and people like them who do the actual work.
When senior leaders anoint themselves as the ultimate approval for all job postings, new or backfills, regardless of level, they are making a clear statement to their teams – they only trust themselves to control expenses. Such a top-down, low trust approach is rarely part of the formula for building successful, high performing teams.
It is also very short-sighted. The expense saved by not replacing a junior person, especially in large companies, is de minimis. It demoralizes the remaining team members who are forced to pick up the slack. Not to mention it inevitably causes them to wonder if layoffs are on the horizon.
Of course, for anyone whose worked in corporate America this is not a new story. If there’s a consistent theme in business, it is the quest for greater and greater productivity. Doing more with less seems to be inherent to capitalism these days. And to be fair, businesses don’t last long if leaders ignore expenses or are ignorant of new processes or technology that can drive greater efficiencies.
Having said that, it’s hard to see how uniform “no backfills” policies ordered and executed from the c-suite are winning strategies long-term. The best companies maintain open lines of communication and are transparent with their line managers about business conditions. They trust their people in both good times and bad.
Talking about trust and accountability in the mission statement is no more than empty lip service if CEOs don’t lean into those principles when it matters most. It’s something every CEO should think about the next time a backfill request for a junior level role comes across their desk.