We are often overwhelmed by how many unknown factors lie behind departing talent – especially when tenured employees leave with no explanation. There are five existing, easily-tapped resources within your walls. And using these resources takes minimum monetary expense.
When it comes to systems, customers, processes, and work environment your employees know more than you ever will.
Put your ego aside and you’ll be shocked at how much mileage some basic respect will go.
Without further fanfare: Five resources you should be talking to.
- Supervisors (of recently-departed talent)
- Follow up and interview when their direct employees leave.
- Identify “warning signs” based on supervisor trends and stories.
- Develop a system to collect more data and serve as an early warning system.
- Peers (of recently-departed talent)
- Nothing happens in a vacuum: what concerns did the employee share with their friends? Do these peers feel the concerns were valid?
- Create some point of contact to proactively learn more.
- Current High-Performing Employees
- They can provide historical context and additional insight about the long-term problems in their department.
- They may be aware of other issues heretofore unidentified.
- Departing High-Performing Employees
- Their reasons for leaving provides real, actionable data.
- We may not keep them with us, but this is one last opportunity for value and feedback.
- Their explanation may lead to other trends and correlations.
- Exit Surveys
- Much as we don’t like to accept negative or emotionally-charged information, there are so many trends and so much useful data in exit surveys.
- Attitudes are data, in themselves: we can compare them to employees’ initial attitudes and communications when they were first hired. If there is a major shift or differential between the two, something serious happened and more research is warranted.
All it takes is the willingness to invest in this data. The fact that so few companies have developed practical, data-producing, action-leading structures around these resources begs the question: do we really value what our employees say?
If you do not have a structure in place to gather this data, I strongly recommend you create one. Take hints from Gallup’s Q12, TinyPulse, BambooHR, LinkedIn’s Glint. If you’re concerned about turnover, say so at the outset. Set the feedback to anonymous. Analyze the feedback. Then host personal face-to-face interviews.
Finally and most importantly? Do something about it. Take dramatic, pinpoint-accurate action.
The people who make your business afloat are a powerful resource.