
Ask HN: Would you tell your manager a teammate is interviewing elsehwere? - jaboutboul
Simple as it sounds. If you found out a key team member was interviewing outside the company, and the loss would be devastating, would you mention it to your manager in hopes of being able to retain that team member?<p>How would you handle this?
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PragmaticPulp
Generally, no. Things to consider:

\- Your intentions might be good, but it could backfire. The manager or
company might not try to retain the team member like you expect. If they think
the employee is leaving, they might rush to replace that person with someone
who won't be leaving the company soon.

\- Unless the team member explicit authorizes you to share the information,
you should treat it as confidential. You would be violating that person's
trust, which is nearly impossible to recover once broken.

\- You put your own reputation at risk by breaking that person's trust. Once
others learn that you shared confidential information with your manager,
they'll assume you're not trustworthy. You can't afford to damage your own
reputation.

\- Put yourself in the team member's position. Would you want someone else to
reveal your career plans to your manager?

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cjbprime
This is such a bad idea that I think it was already a mistake to post it to HN
without using a throwaway account -- even if it is not a real-life inspired
post, your manager doesn't know that. I would delete the post.

The main reason it's a bad idea is that if your coworker decides not to leave
after all, you've just limited their growth at your co, perhaps permanently,
and invisibly to them.

I think the only way something like this could work is if you're able to find
out the true largest source of unhappiness for the coworker, and then present
it to your manager as a general problem (unattributed to your coworker) and
say you're seriously worried it's starting to affect morale.

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Causality1
I'm surprised people ever post to HN with an account that can be in any way
linked to their real identity. You either create an ongoing chore of self-
censorship or expose yourself to real world consequences.

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sidlls
This is from my perspective as a person working in America. I absolutely would
not tell: that’s your colleague’s private business and absolutely none of the
manager’s. It also puts your colleague in a terrible position if his attempts
fail.

If you believe that your colleague is that critical, discuss it with him
directly and discreetly, and maybe make a point of evangelizing him to the
management (but do so without tipping anyone off—shouldn’t be too hard if the
colleague is that critical).

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elefantastisch
Absolutely not.

Your colleague's career decisions are none of your business. Their
relationship with management is none of your business.

Beyond that, the relationship between employee and employer should be
professional. Professionals understand that people--even important people--
sometimes leave, and they plan for that. Thinking you need to look out for the
company is a misunderstanding of how the professional world works. If the
company wanted to ensure a certain term of employment or provide some fallback
in the event of someone wanting to leave, they would have written that into
the contract and paid accordingly. They didn't, so they've knowingly accepted
the risk of this person leaving.

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JohnFen
I would not mention it to my manager, although I may try to talk the team
member into doing it himself.

The reason that I wouldn't do it is because I wouldn't be OK with violating
the trust. Not only would it harm my relationship with that person, but it
would signal to everyone else that I can't be trusted with sensitive
information.

What I might do, though, is to try to engage in some knowledge transfer, to
get that person to pass on the knowledge they have that makes the loss of them
so devastating.

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catacombs
No. Don't be a narc. The team member might have personal reasons as to why he
or she is leaving the company.

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bediger4000
I would never do this. I might tell myself I was being discrete, or I was in
solidarity with my teammate, but I'm not sure what the really real reason is.
I'd just try to forget about it, or maybe to prepare a little for what comes
after that teammate leaves.

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atlasunshrugged
I would definitely not tell the manager unless my teammate gave me express
permission to do so. That is unless you care far more about the company than
about that person as an individual.

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noahlt
If this team member is as key as you say, your relationship with them is
probably just as important to the future of your career as anything they might
be able to do on your current team.

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the_hoser
No, it's not your place to discuss that with your manager.

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celticninja
nope, not your place to do so.

