Employees leave good bosses nearly as often as bad ones, according to a recent study in The Harvard Business Review. Sometimes being a good boss and making your employees accept greater challenges makes them more appealing to outside offers, but don’t let the stop you from being a good manager because there’s something more important than just the attrition rate.

Happy Quitters vs. Frustrated Quitters

Whether your workers leave happy or frustrated is important for your internal brand. They’re going to tell people about their previous jobs and if they say something glowing that helps your brand tremendously. There’s also the boomerang employee phenomenon. Don’t treat an employee leaving as if this is the last time you are going to interact with them, that’s simply not likely.
To make things easy, you should always remain vested in the success of the employees you manage no matter where their careers take them. Building strong alumni relationships is important for everyone. These are the bones of a professional network. It’s important not to think of another person’s choice to leave the company as a statement against your company or you. It’s an exciting time for the leaving employee, why not share in their excitement and wish them the best.

Offboarding

Don’t blow this opportunity to let the leaving employee know that this doesn’t have to spell the end of the relationship (yes, you can still be friends). This is often more important than finding out the pain points that made the employee leave, but it’s good to find those pain points as well. All of this effort shows the employee that they are valued and that’s important. Everyone should be building bridges not igniting the bridges behind them (so they can better see what’s up ahead).

The big difference between a failing company and one that’s on an upward trajectory comes from the way they treat their people — even the people who are leaving. Great companies want to see people succeed more than anything else, and that attitude is infectious. You might lose some people along the way, but that’s part of the business.

About NextGen

NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.