“Any manager will sooner or later encounter the problem of departing employees,” says Svetlana Kataeva, Managing Partner of AVRIO Group Consulting. “The first problem associated with the resignation of a valuable and hard-working employee is to find the person to take over this scope of work without loss of quality. The second problem is the handover process and the proper way to manage it. Yet another risk of sudden resignations of this sort is loss of a portion of customers, especially if we are talking about sales.” According to Ms. Kataeva, normally, this problem primarily concerns small and medium business owners, while corporations are less sensitive to such departures unless an entire team departs.
Yet another notable, even though background risk may potentially be the disposition of the remaining team, its full or partial demotivation resulting from departure of successful and popular team members, added Svetlana Kataeva.
Psychologist Yulia Chalova says a few encouraging words: “If the head of the department or company and HR management specialist are watchful enough, they can always figure out in advance that an employee is planning to resign.”
EMPLOYEE ON THE WAY OUT
The first sign that must put the employer on the alert is the employee’s activity decay, says Margarita Kashuba, Marketing Director, EnglishDom on-line school. “If for instance an employee used to be very active in proposing or criticising things, and now he keeps mum and takes everything for granted, it’s time to inspect his social media: it is the first place to be put in order by the professionals willing to capture the recruiters’ attention,” says the expert recommending that the job search websites be inspected for availability of the employee’s updated resume.As a rule, lower motivation at work is a sign of potential departure from the company, says Maria Margulis, Director of 1000 Cadres Agency.
“If an employee is working smoothly but without particular enthusiasm, clearly separates the work time and the private time, takes innovations easy — all these may indicate that the employee has already received an offer, thought it over, and made his choice,” says Margarita Kashuba. In this situation, whatever the employer does to retain a valuable asset, all you can really do is to find out the real reason for resignation.
Yulia Rotanova, Director of Business Personnel, is listing the signs that she compiled for her company: all of a sudden, the employee has urgent business outside of work —doctor’s appointments, vacation, sick leave and days off. Such employee would often stress the deficiencies at work without suggesting any changes. He would complain about his salary to colleagues and friends. The same arguments are used as excuses for failing to do the work. He is repeatedly late for work and distracts the other employees with conversations.
CAUSES OF THE FRENCH LEAVE
“An employee has multiple reasons not to warn the employer of his departure,” says Marina Malashenko, HR Director, OneTwoTrip travel service. “First, he has possibly not made up his mind to leave the company yet, but wants to see the market and be seen, i.e. to learn whether there are any interesting vacancies that would facilitate his career or professional development, to study the remuneration market, and find out whether everything is OK with the employee’s compensation at the current position.”It is possible that after taking a number of job interviews, the potential defector will realise that he is in a pretty good position and will stay with the company, the expert continues. “If he told his superior that he is looking for something new and is taking job interviews, this could potentially undermine his reputation and company loyalty that would put in question his future career advancement,” clarifies Marina Malashenko.
According to Maria Margulis, the reasons why an employee is looking at the other companies include changes in personal circumstances, situation in the company, and team environment.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
After you identify the defector, the first thing you need to do is to figure out how valuable the information in the employee’s possession is and whether the employee is able to destroy the information or leak it to competitors.Experts claim that if a person is leaving with grievances about the company, he may destroy the documents that he personally developed, delete the customer base, spread misinformation about the top management of the company and thus undermine its standing. “If you feel that an employee is planning to get a new job, you should definitely talk with him and ask directly. The person’s reaction will help you understand whether he is looking for a job and how he is planning to leave. Try to reach an agreement and offer the terms under which the departing employee will be interested in handing over the business to the successor. Set the task of controlling the handover process to the maximum possible extent. Be ready for the audit of the handover,” says Yulia Rotanova.
In order to protect yourself against a sudden resignation, you should engage in proactive recruitment and create a succession pool, says Irina Firstova, Business Partner for HR Management, Commercial Function of Coca-Cola HBC Russia. “One of the products of the annual staff development forum in our company is the list of people whose professional development will stay in the focus of our attention throughout the entire year,” she says. Therefore, the company creates a pool of candidates who will be able to replace the departing employees (or employees who are promoted to a higher level). “Our tactics is as follows: we fill 80% of vacancies with in-house candidates, and 20% of vacancies — through head hunting at the labour market,” Irina Firstova explains.
“The reason for an intended resignation may be that an employee has stayed too long in the position, has outgrown his position, or feels underestimated. In this situation, there is a chance to thwart the departure of a valuable asset,” says Margarita Kashuba. One of the retention tools that she uses in her company is preventive reassignment of the potential defector to a different department or provision thereof with assistance in mastering a new trade required by the team, partly at the company’s expense.
In order to be ready for a French leave at any time, the company must have no indispensable people, says Lyudmila Shusterova, Director for Strategic Development, BDO Unicon Outsourcing. Apart from the succession pool, a manager must be well aware of the members of the current team who know the functions that the departing employee used to handle and will be able to replace him.
Nikita Rogozin, Executive Director of Stakhanovets, has his own recipe for how to be aware of the employee’s potential departure from the company at any time. According to him, electronic tools will help you here: StaffCop, Yawar, Mipko and other software applications will send a signal automatically if they see that an employee is opening job search websites and extracts from the Labour Code on his desktop, or complains in his internal correspondence. However, it is not quite clear how to address the problem of invasion of privacy arising in this case.
PREVENTIVE MEASURES
Ultimately, the most powerful way to protect yourself is to make sure that a resignation does not come as a surprise. To ensure this, watch the changes in the employees’ behaviour closely and discuss career development with the ‘suspect’.This sort of resignations will be avoided by the employers who will make every employee realise that in case of departure, no sanctions in the form of administrative or psychological pressure will be imposed on him. If the employee is not afraid of potential change of attitude, he will be far less interested in hiding his decisions, Yulia Chalova stresses.
By Anastasia Zhigach
Source: dp.ru
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