Before You Replace a Leaver: Is It Still the Role You Need?

A resignation creates an immediate gap. Before recruiting a like-for-like replacement, check whether the work, priorities and skills your organisation needs have changed.

Spinwell Global | 5 min read | Recruitment and Workforce Planning

A resignation lands. The vacancy is approved. Someone finds the previous job description, changes the date and sends it to recruitment.

It is an understandable response. There is work to cover, a team under pressure and a manager who wants the position filled quickly.

But it leaves one important question unanswered: does the organisation still need the same role?

The departing employee may have joined under different priorities, with different systems and a different team around them. Replacing their job title does not necessarily replace the capability the organisation now needs.

A vacancy should trigger a decision about the work before it triggers a search for the person.

Start with the business need, not the old job description

CIPD describes workforce planning as balancing the supply of people and skills against organisational demand. Its guidance starts with understanding the organisation, analysing the existing workforce and determining future capability needs. Recruitment is one possible response, not the starting assumption.

That principle is useful at the level of an individual vacancy. Before authorising a like-for-like replacement, ask what the role must contribute now.

Has the team taken on new responsibilities? Has a programme moved from implementation into ongoing operation? Have customer expectations changed? Have new systems removed some tasks while creating others?

The answer may still be to recruit for the same position. The point is to make that decision deliberately, rather than inherit it from a document written several years ago.

Separate the role from the person who held it

Review the work the employee actually performed, not just the responsibilities in their original specification.

For example, a project coordinator might also have become the informal owner of reporting, supplier queries and system administration. Reproducing that combination in a new job description would not establish whether those responsibilities belong together.

A practical review should distinguish between:

Core responsibilities that still require clear ownership.
Additional tasks that accumulated without a deliberate decision.
Work that is no longer necessary or could be simplified.
New responsibilities that the next hire will need to take on.

This is not an exercise in undervaluing the departing employee. It is a way to avoid asking their replacement to step into a role whose boundaries nobody has properly defined.

Do not turn every preference into an essential requirement

Once the work is clear, review the person specification.

Someone who held a role for eight years will have accumulated experience, relationships and organisational knowledge. A new hire cannot arrive with the same internal history. They need the capability to do the work and the support to learn the organisation.

For each requirement, ask:

Is this essential for effective performance from the start?
Could it be developed through a realistic induction or training plan?
Is it tied to a genuine technical, regulatory or operational requirement?
Would relevant experience from another sector demonstrate the same capability?

The objective is not to lower standards. It is to distinguish between what makes someone effective and what makes their CV resemble the previous employee’s.

Check what the existing team can realistically cover

CIPD’s guidance includes analysing current skills and talent, then considering development or external support where gaps remain.

Before recruiting externally, check whether an existing colleague could take on part of the requirement through progression, redeployment or development.

However, internal capability is not the same as spare capacity. Moving responsibilities to a capable employee without removing other work does not resolve the resourcing question.

Any internal option should make clear:

Which responsibilities will move and which will stop.
What training, support and authority the employee will need.
Whether their existing role will require additional cover.
How the change will be agreed, recognised and reviewed.

If the proposal only works because people are expected to absorb an indefinite increase in workload, revisit it.

Match the hiring model to the duration of the need

Once the remaining gap is understood, decide how it should be resourced.

An ongoing responsibility with clear long-term ownership may justify a permanent appointment. A defined project or short-term requirement may warrant time-limited specialist support. An immediate gap while a permanent search proceeds may require temporary cover.

These are options to assess, not interchangeable solutions. The nature of the work, budget, management arrangements and applicable employment and engagement requirements all matter.

CIPD’s workforce-planning guidance explicitly includes getting the right skills in place at the right time, cost and on the right contract.

The question is therefore not simply, “Can we replace this person?” It is, “What arrangement gives this work appropriate ownership for as long as it is needed?”

Define what the next hire should achieve

A revised job description should explain more than the activities the employee will undertake. It should establish what successful performance looks like.

Identify a small number of realistic outcomes for the first six months. Depending on the role, these might include stabilising a reporting process, taking ownership of a service, improving the visibility of project risks or establishing a workable delivery schedule.

Make the dependencies explicit. If success requires system access, training, budget approval or decisions from senior stakeholders, those responsibilities cannot sit with the new hire alone.

Use the agreed outcomes to shape the recruitment brief, interview questions and induction plan. CIPD also recommends clear responsibilities and regular evaluation of workforce-planning actions.

Keep the review proportionate

A vacancy review should not become a reason to postpone an urgent decision indefinitely.

Bring together the hiring manager, HR or recruitment, and the people who understand the work. Agree what needs immediate cover, what can be reviewed and who will approve the revised brief.

For a straightforward role, the review may confirm that little needs to change. For a position shaped by years of added responsibilities, it may reveal a more substantial redesign.

Either outcome is useful. The aim is a clearer decision, not a longer process.

The Spinwell perspective

A useful recruitment brief explains why the role exists, what it needs to deliver and which capabilities are genuinely essential.

Before you replace a leaver, check that those answers still reflect the organisation today. You may need the same role, a differently shaped position or another way to resource the work.

If you are reviewing a vacancy or defining a new hiring requirement, speak to Spinwell Global about the capability you need and the brief that will guide the search.

About Spinwell Global

Spinwell Global is a specialist recruitment consultancy with offices in the UK, Dubai and Singapore. We place contractors and permanent professionals across digital, technology, risk and security into public-sector, private-sector and startup organisations worldwide. We are an approved supplier on the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 7 framework through the Government Commercial Agency.