The sudden departure of a key team member is often a shock for the team manager. The problems is not just in the impact of the departure on the team's and company's performance, but also in the manager's own confusion that he did not catch any warning signs. John Sullivan, professor of management at San Francisco State University, wrote about this confusion in an article on ERE.net. Which warning signals should you notice and what can you do to prevent your best people from leaving?
1. Conduct "stay interviews"
Trying to find out why an important team member is leaving during an exit interview is too late. You should rather focus on regular "stay interviews" - informal interviews in order to determine what you can do to keep your talented people.
2. Watch the internet
You can easily find out if your employees are interested in leaving, for example, on LinkedIn. Follow recent changes in their profile. Another warning sign may be when your employee publishes his CV on a job board. All you have to do is to type an employee's name in a search engine. With a little help from a skilled programmer, you may even create a custom tool to monitor the activities of your subordinates on the Internet.
3. Watch the length of past employment
If your subordinate has spent approximately the same number of months or years in his previous jobs, he is likely to remain with you for the same period. It is much better for you to anticipate and develop early efforts to maintain the employee than to be surprised and unprepared.
4. Discover the reasons for leaving previous jobs
Most managers do not know why their best people left their previous jobs, and that's a mistake. You should ask about it during job interviews, or, at least during the period of onboarding. Only then you can take steps to prevent from the same from happening to you.
5. Focus on jobs with high turnover
Sometimes employees leave because their colleagues in similar positions accept "better offers". In cooperation with HR, managers should therefore develop a "map" of jobs and teams with high turnover and focus on them.
Another five recommendations will be published in the second part of the article.
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