
What to do when employees quit - AliCollins
https://www.groovehq.com/blog/what-to-do-when-employees-quit
======
kafkaesq
_Imagine getting punched in the stomach._

 _And then, instead of recovering in a few minutes, imagine the shock and pain
slowly turning into disappointment, anger and dread._

 _Don’t you realize how important you are to the team?_

 _How could you do this to me?_

 _It was what I felt right then and there. Betrayal. Sadness. Despair about
the future._

Umm, companies pull the plug on employees all the time. In most cases with
_vastly_ less forethought and regret than employees engage in when leaving
their jobs (even jobs they hate).

I guess it can sort of "hurt" on the management side, when employees leave.
But given the pain that employees go through (hint: the immediate threat to
their own physical safety, as well as that of their families) when they're let
go, I'm not sure how one could begin to consider the two situations as
remotely comparable. Let alone get so emotional, and feel such a sense of
"despair" when an employee (even a particularly valued one) leaves.

~~~
tikhonj
That quote is really out of context. His _point_ is that this is the wrong
reaction, but a very natural one. Here's what _directly follows this quote_ :

> _It doesn’t matter that these questions weren’t the right ones to be asking.

It doesn’t matter that they weren’t even remotely accurate, and frankly,
incredibly selfish.

It doesn’t matter that they run counter to everything I’ve learned about
managing employee exits since then.

It was what I felt right then and there. Betrayal. Sadness. Despair about the
future._

It's pretty easy to get overly emotional on anything that you've put
significant amounts of time and effort into. The point of the article is that
you shouldn't actually follow these feelings and that there are much better
ways of handling it.

~~~
kafkaesq
Your right it is -- I didn't quite catch that when I was pasting, but it does
sound a bit unfair, out of context.

So: apologies to the original author.

------
cryptica
If an employee is so valuable that it hurts when they leave, maybe they should
have been given more incentives to stay.

You can't say that an employee is selfish when they're the ones doing all the
hard, laborious technical work and getting almost nothing out of it aside from
a below-average startup salary.

This might come as a shock to some, but engineers have feelings and ambitions
too. In this highly competitive market, it makes sense to give your employees
more equity if you want to hold on to them. When you consider supply and
demand, the ratio of founders to engineers is now much higher than it ever
was. Great engineers are rare.

I've left quite a few companies, even a promising startup - Would I have left
if I held even 5% equity in that company? Probably not.

If you don't give your 'valued' employee decent equity then you are the
selfish one and I hope that they do leave (if only out of respect for the
profession).

I've seen too many self-important founders who think that they deserve twenty
times more equity than their best employee (just because they're friends with
a rich investor). Taking risks is easy (and kind of fun), doing mind-numbing
programming every day for 10 years is not (and working for a single company,
in a single problem domain for that long IS mind numbing).

Also, let's not pretend that engineers aren't taking risks. 5 years of a young
engineer's life is a huge risk especially when you consider that a lot of
engineers start to slow down as they get older.

------
taurath
This part is key:

> Take the time, on a regular basis, to talk to your employees about their
> lives, goals and challenges. Ask them what they hope to accomplish, not just
> in the next week, but in the next year, five years and ten years in their
> careers. Listen intently to what they say, and think about how you can help
> them achieve that. And then act.

Anyone who asks me those questions will get double the loyalty out of me -
they'll know before I even think of going elsewhere. I've been at way too many
places that just don't give a damn, or assume that people will look out for
themselves. They will, but probably to another place. But if you want them to
be dedicated and loyal to working for you you need to get out in front. Solve
the little problems before they become big ones, or lose your best employees
(who can easily get a job elsewhere) and let your companies morale and
productivity die.

~~~
xyzzy4
> Take the time, on a regular basis, to talk to your employees about their
> lives, goals and challenges. Ask them what they hope to accomplish, not just
> in the next week, but in the next year, five years and ten years in their
> careers. Listen intently to what they say, and think about how you can help
> them achieve that. And then act.

Ah, the dreaded one-on-ones. This would actually make me want to leave the
company if I have to be open all the time. Why should I have to divulge my
personal aspirations to my employers? That's private information.

~~~
throwavay_java
You should divulge your personal aspirations because your company might
actually help you achieve them.

It pays to start thinking about how your interests which you are a little bit
afraid to share might help your career... because this is how you get your
employer to pay for them.

It depends on the employer. I wouldn't say "I want to quit this dump and
become a water colour artist and photographer". But I /would/ say "I think
that studying some art subjects would really benefit my front end design work
here".

I wouldn't say "I want to get away from you and write poetry" but I /would/
say "I would like to improve my written communication skills, which will
really help the clarity in my correspondence with clients and in my detailed
documentation and commit messages. Would work fund this course I have found"

If there is any cross-over at all between where you want to go and what
benefits your employer, it's in both of your interests to put that spin on it
and get them to pay for it.

The one-on-ones are only something to dread if you don't know how to ask for
things in a way that is mutually beneficial. As you get older and more
experienced in negotiation it becomes easier.

Remember, its "career aspirations", not "personal aspirations".

------
angersock
About to do an exit interview tomorrow, and this article resonates with me, in
the general case.

There are also the cases of pathologically bad employees, or just
underperforming.

However, in some cases, it _is_ personal. It's not some growth stage for the
employee--they could well be leaving an early employee role because _you_ ,
the founder(s), _have fucked up_. You've found yourself with an employee
putting out tremendous amounts of work, transferring their knowledge,
coordinating their team even as they're leaving, and who generally would be
great except for the fact that, for some reason, _they 're leaving_.

Things you should be asking yourself and your employee:

Did you ignore, multiple times, their domain expertise because you {thought
you knew better, couldn't afford to follow it, felt like it, didn't like
them}?

Did you support them in front of their team? If not, did you support them _at
all_? Did you respect the chain of command, or did you reallocate their
resources under them?

Did you lie to them? Was it for a good reason, because of {team morale, need-
to-know, legal liability}? Whether or not you ever lied to them, _did they
feel like they could trust what you said_?

Did you give them information when they requested it? Did you give them
resources when they requested it? If you _didn 't_ give them resources, why
not, and was it worth it in the long run?

Did you spend enough time with them, communicating not just about work but
bullshitting and building a friendship? If you didn't, was it because you
{were busy, had other leads, didn't like them, are an "introvert"}? How did
that lack of communication factor into their departure?

Did you display _any competence at all_ by some objective metric in your
facility as leader? Whether or not you did, _did the employee feel like you
were competent_?

And yeah, I think you should feel bad. You've wasted their time and the
company's resources because of your mismanagement. If you're really luckily,
maybe you can learn from it and keep from losing anyone else--because if you
don't, you don't deserve to be followed.

~~~
taurath
Note that the amount of these questions these leaders will ask themselves is
inversely proportionate to their own ego. I watched half an engineering team
leave a company over 2-3 months and each and every time the 3 managers up the
chain found ways to explain it that didn't involve their competence or
methods. Last I saw they were circling the drain.

------
o_nate
Seems like "pay them more" should be at least mentioned as a possibility here.

~~~
codingdave
Tech people (in general) do not make job decisions based solely on money. They
want recognition, good work, good teams, good leadership, a meaningful
product, etc. If your solution to morale problems is to increase salaries, you
have already missed the mark in some of these other areas.

~~~
sheepmullet
> Tech people (in general) do not make job decisions based solely on money.

Actually, money is a huge factor for most tech people. I don't know many
developers who wouldn't move jobs for a 30-40% increase in pay.

Not to mention salary is fairly closely tied to value within a company...
unless you are getting ripped off. And once somebody realises they are getting
ripped off they are likely to leave.

------
davidgrenier
I know for some people that article may feel like this article talks about
them one way or another. It may also seem a little self involved to think that
it does if you are an employee.

But a word of advice for such talented employee as some of the recommendations
go both ways. I'm 5 weeks away from being done with a 6 months-ahead notice to
my employer that I would be leaving because I knew nobody could enter "the
kingdom" that I ended up holding the key to. I felt too bad leaving them in
that situation especially since I was given opportunities may developers would
never expect their current employer to go for. I also know that despite that
long transfer of knowledge they'll have a heck of a hard time dealing with.

You don't want to be irreplaceable just as much as they don't want you to be,
especially in an era where software developers are in such ridiculous demand.
And in no way does this mean you can't be as good as you work to be.

~~~
sheepmullet
It sounds like you were given opportunities you wouldn't get elsewhere and in
exchange you showed them loyalty and didn't leave them in the lurch by giving
them 6 months notice. To me that's a great success story for both sides.

Do you feel like the advantages given to you weren't worth the 6 months extra
you felt like you had to stay? Why?

The first company I worked for full time made me the solution architect for a
20 person project even though I only had 2 years of work experience at the
time. Successfully completing that project put me an easy 5 years ahead of my
peers in terms of career growth and very few of them have caught up in the 10
years since.

------
unabridged
If a leaving employee is so important, you should ask yourself "Am I really
100x-1000x (whatever ratio your equity is to their equity) more important than
this employee?"

~~~
davidgrenier
You seem to make the assumption that just throwing more money at the
individual is fair compensation. Perhaps I misunderstood your statement.

~~~
kafkaesq
Founder equity is typically on a completely different scale than that of
employees (even first hires). So we shouldn't be surprised that their loyalty
is on a completely different scale, as well.

~~~
unabridged
Exactly. My main problem is that the CEO's stance is entirely hypocritical,
because he would demand real equity or quit (probably even faster) if he was
in the employee's position.

Once you have access to millions in funding its tough to see people who have
to work for a living as human just like you. You expect them to lovingly
accept terms that you would be insulted at.

Now if your talent is so great that you dwarf all your employees it might be
justified. But when you are pained at losing productive workers chances are
your favorable terms exist mostly because of your connections.

~~~
cmdrfred
This is exactly as I see it. A company and it's investment in me is how I
determine my investment in it. Pay market average expect an average 8 hour
work day.

------
lgleason
The way you treat exiting employees is just as important as how you treat them
when they are still there from a recruiting perspective. If you treat someone
well when they decide to leave, they are more likely to recommend your company
to others looking for a job.

There have been places I left for various reasons that were great employers
that I still recommend to this day for others looking for a job.....and might
even thing about joining if the right opportunity came along.

~~~
chiph
I made this point at a previous firm I worked at. That the number of potential
employees in any town is a finite number, and so you want to treat people
leaving as brand ambassadors of your firm so you won't have trouble hiring in
the future.

------
mdergosits
As good as slack is for communicating I don't think it should be used as a
"knowledge" store. At a previous employer I found that commit messages were a
great way to store information. Maybe commit messages aren't as great for
question and answers, but searching slack doesn't seem very intuitive.

Idea: A slack bot that searches for questions and answers and creates a wiki
out of the scraped information.

~~~
Jemaclus
What's really great is when you go back in the Slack history from the day you
interviewed and see what people said about you... I imagine that can sometimes
be awkward.

~~~
torbit
sounds like they are using it wrong. user error.

~~~
gohrt
Or privacy fail in the applicatio design/UI

------
StillBored
As someone who left, and is now hearing of the rest of the team leaving....

1st, if someone is so darn important, it is your job to have a backup plan for
when they quit, or for that matter get hit by the proverbial bus. Anything
less is managerial incompetence, spend a day or two reading about business
continuity.

2nd, there are these things called golden handcuffs, if you don't understand
the concept I refer you to the above.

3rd, if you don't have the money for 2, then you better not be seen driving
around in your brand new lamborghini, or spending all your time at over the
top expensive restaurants while your employees have a tiny fraction of the
company, and slave away for 70+ hours a week eating crap ass food from the
fast food joint they are paying for themselves. (This really happened!)

------
sheepmullet
You can document institutional knowledge and try and make sure nobody is
indispensable but ultimately you will still take a huge blow.

You should focus most of your attention on improving retention.

I left a full 200 page notebook full of product ideas/customer
notes/requirements/designs when I left my last job. Hopefully it helps the
team but it is only in note form and completely unordered. More likely they
won't look at it and the knowledge will just be lost.

