As a manager, not much could be worse than unexpectedly losing one of your top-performing employees. Employee turnover is nothing new, but it is more difficult to deal with when you missed all the red flags that your employee was going to leave. While you can’t know exactly when you will lose an employee, you can prepare for it so you’re not completely surprised when the time comes.
The key to conquering employee turnover is to develop an identification process that determines characteristics of employees who are ready to leave. Here are 5 tactics that may help identify warning signs that an employee wants to quit, before it’s too late. The earlier you start the identification process, the better prepared you will be.
1. Research previous job tenure.
Before hiring a new employee, examine their resume to get an indication of the type of employee they are. Do they jump from job to job or have they been at the same job for 10+ years? Examining their job tenure is an easy way to calculate how long this potential employee would remain with your company.
2. Investigate their past employment.
As part of the hiring process, managers should make a point to ask during interviews for specific causes or elements that led them to leave their last job(s). The key in this tactic is to identify any reoccurring themes in why they left their previous employers.
If there is a reoccurring reason why they left their past jobs, consider how this employee’s needs align with your organization. Is the reason why they left their other jobs going to be the reason why they leave this job?
3. Search their social media accounts.
Social media is useful in more ways than one. It’s almost a double agent – useful for recruiting as well as keeping tabs on current employees. Visiting an employee’s LinkedIn profile is an easy indicator that your employee may want to leave. Recent updates on their profile, such as a revised job description or summary is a potential red flag.
To investigate further, you can do a simple Google search to find out if an employee has recently posted their resume on career sites like Monster.com or Craigslist.
4. Watch their work habits.
Is one of your employees acting out of character? Is your top performing employee having slip-ups and becoming a disengaged employee? Is your normally vocal employee isolating themselves from other co-workers or keeping to themselves in meetings? These may all be subtle signs that your employee already has one foot out the door.
5. Meet regularly.
Maintaining a relationship with your employee will enable trust between the two of you. If you feel that you have a comfortable enough relationship, you can consider asking them straight forward if they are happy with their current position and if not, to identify what can be improved. It also wouldn’t hurt to reinforce that you would like them to have the courtesy of providing you with a heads up that they are seeking alternative employment.
For more information on preparing for employee turnover, please reach out to Genesis HR Solutions at AskUs@genesishrsolutions.com or 800-367-8367.
Genesis HR Solutions is the premier PEO provider for Massachusetts based businesses.
