Unplanned Absence: the Day Someone Does Not Log On

A planned absence has a runway: a document, a named backup, decisions closed in advance. An unplanned one has none of that, and it happens far more often. Illness, a family emergency, a delayed flight, a personal crisis. The work was mid-sentence and the person is simply not there.

"No handover, no note, no idea where they were."

The gap planned absence does not have

Everything in the standard coverage playbook assumes advance warning. Write the handover, brief the backup, close what you can, tell the stakeholders. None of it is available when someone does not log on.

Which means the quality of an unplanned absence is determined entirely by what was already written before it happened. That is an uncomfortable conclusion, because it cannot be fixed reactively. On the morning it happens, your options are limited to what exists.

It also explains why a one-day unplanned absence can be more disruptive than a two-week planned one. Two weeks gets a handover; a Tuesday gets nothing, and the team spends the morning reconstructing where things stood.

The first hour, in order

Do these in this order, because the order matters.

• Check the person is all right. One message, privately, with no work content. Somebody who did not log on may be having a bad day or a serious one, and the first contact they receive should not be about a deployment.
• Do not broadcast. Tell the team the person is unexpectedly away today and that is all. Their reason is theirs, and speculation in a channel is corrosive.
• Find out what was in flight. Their last brief, the board, and anything mid-review. This is where the day is either easy or hard.
• Name today's decision route. One person, for today, announced. Ambiguity here is what turns a day of absence into a day of stalling.

Yesterday's brief is today's coverage

The third step is the whole thing. If the person confirmed a ninety-second brief at the end of yesterday, the team already has what it needs: current state, open questions, blockers, next actions, in their own words, written by someone who had no idea they would be away.

With StandIn, that brief is also answerable. While they are off, and an unexpected day is the same kind of off as a planned one, their StandIn answers questions from the brief in their words, with a source under every answer, clearly labelled, and it never guesses. When something is not in the record, it says so and names who to ask, which tells the team immediately which items genuinely have to wait rather than having them discover it at four in the afternoon.

Two honest limits. The brief covers what was written up to the previous evening, so anything that happened in the person's head on the way home is not there. And it answers questions, it does not make decisions: the deployment still needs a human to approve it. Within those limits, it is the difference between a normal Tuesday and a reconstruction exercise. See retire your out-of-office.

If it turns into three days

Day one you improvise. From day two, treat it as a short planned absence: name the coverage properly, tell the stakeholders, and decide explicitly which work pauses rather than letting it pause by default.

And set one rule about contacting the person: one named individual, usually their manager, checks in once a day about their wellbeing and nothing else. Work questions do not go to someone who is ill. What makes that rule possible to keep is the record, because without it the pressure to ask just one quick question becomes overwhelming by day two.

Afterwards, when they are back and well, ask what would have made that week easier. The answer is usually specific and small, and it is worth more than any generic resilience planning.

Common Questions

How do you handle an unplanned absence with no handover?

Check on the person first, name one decision route for the day, and work from whatever they last wrote down. You cannot create a handover retroactively, so the practical preparation is a daily habit rather than an absence process.

Is it acceptable to contact someone who is off sick with a work question?

No. One wellbeing check from one person, and no work content. If the work genuinely cannot continue, that is a signal about your coverage rather than a reason to message someone who is ill.

What should a team do about the work that was mid-flight?

Establish its state from the record rather than by guessing, then decide deliberately whether to continue it or pause it. Continuing work on a wrong assumption about where it stood is the most expensive available option.

How do we prepare for absences we cannot predict?

A daily end-of-day brief is the only thing that genuinely prepares for an unplanned absence, because it exists before anyone knows it is needed. Everything else in coverage planning depends on notice.