It
hurts doesn’t it? When someone in your team decides to leave you after you have
invested significant time and money in them. Just think about it - there was
the recruitment drive, recruitment fees, onboarding, induction, on the job training,
external training and time till they were fully functional. Plus the
financial ‘on costs’ which include superannuation, worker’s compensation
and payroll tax etc. adding up to an additional 22.5% on top of the base
salary. Now you have to start the process all over again, taking a hit on
productivity and profit in the interim.
It
will hurt more if this person played a key role in your team or was one of your
high performing employees. So why did they take the decision to leave,
especially given the current market stability? Do you know? Do you care? What
could you learn from asking?
Here
are five things you can do to learn
from the experience and ensure a smooth exit:
1.
Exit
Process – we generally make a fuss when new hires choose to join
our company and help us achieve our company goals but the same does not tend to
happen at the Exit. It is critical that we treat people professionally as
they exit. This includes ensuring timely & appropriate communication, the
return of security passes and keys and ensuring systems access ceases. Make
them feel good about their contribution to the business, a thank you card and cake
does wonders
2.
Handover
–
as soon as you are aware of the resignation, you need to plan for the exit. Who
will be doing the role until the individual is replaced? Is this an opportunity
to reduce headcount or split up the duties between other team members? Ask
the exiting team member to write a detailed handover document covering off all
aspects of their role
3.
Exit
Interview & analysis – conduct an exit interview with all
individuals who have resigned. This shows that you value their thoughts and
inputs; they may be more inclined to share information now that it will not
affect their promotion opportunities or salary. You will be amazed at what you
will learn. It does not stop there, after a while you will capture trends and
information that is extremely valuable to the growth of your business
4.
Alternatives
to losing people – if you are managing your people effectively
and closely and I don’t mean micro - managing them, resignations would not come
as a surprise. I would recommend avoiding a counter-offer situation but it is
an option available to you if you desire. It may buy you more time to develop a
strategy to cross train team members to cover other roles or look to start the
recruitment process again. Most individuals who accept counter-offers tend to
resign again within six months because either the promised changes do not occur
or there is resentment harboured as it took them to resign before you paid them
what they felt they were worth all along. Managers need to understand and know
what drives and motivates their team and take responsibility for removing
blockers
5.
Alumni – it is
a small market out there and sometimes former employees become competitors or
clients or they might discover that the’ grass was not greener’ and seek to
return. This can be a real bonus but how can you pave the way for this to
happen? A good idea is to develop an Alumni program. What does this involve?
Not a lot. Make sure that you have contact details for the terminating employee
and send out a newsletter each quarter sharing what is happening in your
business. They may become an advocate or source of new clients for you or even
just a great friend.
I am still great friends with my first boss, she
hired me at 18 years old when I knew nothing and then again at 21 when I am not
sure I knew much more and then she became a client of mine. Now she is much
more than that and was on that yacht in Croatia I talked about in a previous
blog.
Losing people is inevitable but you can maximise
the opportunity as it presents itself rather than make a bad situation worse.
Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters
Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their
HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering
includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management. –
find them at www.employeematters.com.au
