Over the past couple of months, we have had several regretted resignations from valued employees. In EVERY ONE of these cases, I learned of the situation well after the fact, when the people were already out the door. This is suggestive to me that we don’t have a rigorous, disciplined process in place of "What do we do when someone we want to retain comes in to resign?". | Guide to Retaining Employees Perspective from J. Lafferty Back to Menu To Business Team and Leadership Team August 4 2000 Subject Retaining Potential Resignations---Personal and Confidential Folks Over the past couple of months we have had several regretted resignations from valued employees. In EVERY ONE of these cases I learned of the situation well after the fact when the people were already out the door. This is suggestive to me that we don t have a rigorous disciplined process in place of What do we do when someone we want to retain comes in to resign . It is absolutely crucial we have a system. In a promote from within system it is a matter of survival that we keep our top performers. Our people are our key to success. The cardinal rule first and foremost is we should ALWAYS stay on top of managing our best people. We should keep their salary updated and reviewed regularly. We should keep them challenged. We should NEVER take them for granted and keep up regular dialogue to ensure we know how they are feeling what issues they may be having. When is the last time we have followed up with our people simply to ask how are you feeling Any issues or concerns . However beyond this headhunters do call people naturally do check out the market and despite our best efforts to be proactive in retaining talent folks will walk in the door from time to time to announce their intent to leave P G. At this point we can t cry over the situation. We are where we are. What we have to do is put a FIRM PLAN in place to retain the individual. When somebody first announces they are leaving the knee-jerk reaction is to ask them Why and then launch into an immediate counter argument. This is ABSOLUTELY THE WRONG WAY TO COUNTER SELL A RESIGNATION. Why Because this approach harbors two major flaws 1. It disregards the fact that people have both spoken and UNSPOKEN reasons for leaving. If all you do is address the spoken one you miss all the underlying other reasons. 2. You move in too .
