Resignation and exit from companies (for whatever reason) is something that is inevitable. Yet many bosses and managers take it to heart and treat it as a personal attack on them. In other words, the resignation become a betrayal to them and the company. How bosses and managers react to the situation can reflect negatively on management and the organisation. One must not forget, there are other employees that may appear oblivious to resignations, but very much observant and aware of how bosses handle the situation. They are observant in tone of voice, language used and yes body language. Will they be treated in the same undignified manner should they be put in the same situation?
To mitigate this unpleasant event, progressive organisations should have a robust documented policy | practice on how to manage employees when they resign; from receiving the resignation request, managing the employee during his notice period, facilitating an effective exit interview, to interviewing and hiring an equally competent replacement. Above all, employees that have resigned deserve to be treated with respect and allowed to leave with his dignity intact. After all, he has served in his capacity and to the best of his ability, albeit not meeting with the high expectations of his/her supervisor.
Organisations go through great lengths to recruit the right people with the requisite skills and after that spend much time to nurture them only for them to leave the company. “How disheartening!” But this need not be the case; if bosses and managers want to keep their people; especially the star performers, it is now the time to pay more attention to how they design their work. Most companies design jobs and then slot people into them. Progressive companies | managers make effort to do the opposite: When they find talented people, they’are open to creating jobs around them
To summarise there are three things that a company can do to stem the flow of their people; when all else fail, they must be able to manage the situation consistently by (1) Changing their mindset and looking beyond the thinking of being a victim of betrayal; (2) Having a documented process guide in place so that relevant managers know what to do always, instead of dwelling on the employee and robbing him of his much needed respect and dignity (3) Pay more attention to the job design and then fitting the best person in the role; this results in happier and less stressed employee.
