Update: My Employees are Recruited All the Time

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This is a follow-up to my post, My Employees are Recruited All the Time, published on October 27, 2015.

Well, this time it didn’t work in Intero’s favor. When our Strategic Navigator, Alicia, told me she was leaving Intero I was disappointed but happy for her. Alicia’s tenure with Intero was pretty close to the millennial average. When we have employees who are talented, well-branded and easy to find on LinkedIn, it’s inevitable.

Between my initial reaction, what I knew was on deck for our 2016 and how I wanted to insure a good transition I took the opportunity to assess how Alicia’s role had changed over the last two years, what we needed going forward and how the skill set may have shifted. After several conversations that included our team, including Alicia, one person naturally emerged.

Sydney Slavin has joined our Intero and in a few short weeks has shown herself to be a high-contributor, assuming many of Alicia’s clients and responsibilities as well as diving into our new training platform, Intero Step by Step.

When someone resigns, take some time to consider if the position and/or skill set needs to be tweaked (this is particularly true for marketing, sales and technical positions where skill sets are in continual transition due to technology). Review and update your job description and key results.

6 Takeaways When a Great Employee Leaves:

1. Ask the person who is leaving how they would update the position; what worked well and what didn’t.
2. Tap into your network and your employees’ networks. Be proactive and ask them who they might know. Encourage them to share the open position with their LinkedIn network. Consider an employee incentive for talent referrals.
3. Work fast. If you have a bench, great; tap into it quickly. If not, move fast and try to arrange a handoff. This can be training, a conversation, a written manual. Ideally, there is communication and the employee that is leaving is vested in creating a good transition.
4. Clearly not all departures are friendly or welcome, but when it’s a good situation, a mutually beneficial transition can be expected.
5. Create a good onboarding experience, as much as possible. Make sure the new person doesn’t have to drop into meetings or client relationships alone and with no context. This is especially true in a small business.
6. Encourage your new employee to build their professional brand, get comfortable, be a high-contributor, offer their perspective and make their own stamp on the position.

In the book, “The Alliance, Managing Talent in the Networked Age” by Reid Hoffman, Ben Cansnocha and Chris Yeh, they talk about turning your former employees into an alumni network. You want them to transition well and continue to be a part of your extended team. Encourage them to remain ambassadors.

The benefit is mutual and you will find your network value increasing, once again.

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