Everyday employees quit their current jobs and go to new employers. Business and completing projects don’t stop and your employees aren’t going to tell you they are looking for another job – so what’s a manager to do?
Lucky for us some smart people from Arizona State, Florida State and Utah State conducted research and wrote a white paper on how managers could determine if an employee is about to quit. The study introduces the concept of pre-quitting behaviors which employees may unknowingly “leak” to others that can observe and use those behaviors to identify at risk of leaving.
If you’ve been reading our posts for a while, you know we focus on solving employee challenges and how managers and leaders can sometimes get ahead of issues. There has been a way to evaluate a person’s behavior since Aristotle was alive. William Moulton Marsden put the observation into a framework that laymen could understand called the DISC. While DISC gives a general overview of a potential behavior style, the white paper goes into more detail about pre-quitting behaviors.
One of the main ways you can tell if an employee has leaving on their mind is by their Organizational Citizenship Behavior. This is where an employee will assist coworkers or do the right thing for the future of the company or being an ambassador for the organization. It’s like being a good corporate citizen. When an employee stops any of these behaviors, they are waving the red flag and you might want to take notice instead of ignoring it. If you’ve implemented the three question sessions like I have advocated for before – you’ll be way ahead of knowing if an employee is thinking of quitting.
I’d like to point out here if you happen to be using the TriMetrixHD behavioral assessment that we recommend – you’d have a good idea of who on the team or in the company will support the organizational mission. You’ll also know a lot more about the people that work for you which is good information if you are trying to build a team that works as a team.
Other measures you can take if you suspect a good employee is about to leave:
* Conduct a ‘Stay interview’ to ifnd out what it’s going to take to keep them
* Look at a potential pay increase, promotions or giving them a special project
* Let them cross train or work with another department on a project where they could add value
If you suspect a good employee is about to leave and you aren’t sure what to do or where to start, drop us a note. We help companies like yours every day to solve these types of employee challenges and we’d be delighted to help you.