The Great Resignation: A Coping Guide
There are a lot of people leaving jobs right now. Lots of them.
A combination of the end of the global pandemic, the erosion of any sort of stigma associated with job jumping, nearly nonexistent unemployment, the legitimate arms race for talent, and everybody re-examining their life all at the same time has led to a lot of people leaving positions. There’s a pile-up, right? Everyone stayed put for 18 months, so now what would have been a year and a half of turnover is happening at the same time. It’s been dubbed “The Great Resignation” and I read somewhere that more people are leaving jobs now than at any other time in the history of work.
A lot of times this is pretty painful when someone bails. It’s an inopportune time, they are a valuable person, it throws your business into chaos unnecessarily. It’s a headache, at a time when we all have plenty of headaches. Oftentimes those of us who are leaders of companies vehemently disagree with somebody’s decision to leave. Oftentimes we are mad.
“Don’t take it personally,” they say.
I read a book recently, called Fanatical Prospecting, in which the author Jeb Blount talks about rejection being one of the most personal emotions that you can feel. And, make no mistake, for whatever reason, when somebody leaves your company it is both a rejection of your company and you. You should take it personally. It should hurt. It should sting you to your core. It should rock your world and make you question your choices and your self-worth. If it doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong.
But eating this sort of energy is corrosive. A lot of times somebody who is leaving the company will say something along the lines of “It’s not about you.” But they’re wrong. Of course, it’s about you.
What you realize when you really think about it is that they’re thinking about their own interests, their own opportunities, their own future. And so anytime that you spend dwelling on the past, dwelling on their decision, dwelling on your frustration … that’s time that you are wasting. It’s energy but you’ll never get back. So here’s a list of six places where you can immediately channel all of the energy that you’re feeling when somebody leaves her company into productive, opportunity-filled efforts.
Channel your energy into showing them a dignified trip out the door.
There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by being petty, small, vindictive, nasty, or anything else to departing employees. We’ve heard all sorts of crazy stories about the way that companies treat their employees when they go out the door. People having to take employees out to secret lunches or not mention that they’re still Facebook friends with former colleagues because those departing colleagues are immediately moved to such a persona non grata status. It makes no sense. Not only is this a tremendous waste of energy but any organization that is eating its people on the way out the door is forgetting that it’s really not about the person who’s leaving. As soon as the person quits, it’s not about them anymore. It’s about everybody else who is staying. They are your focus. Desiree Vargas Wrigley, a successful serial entrepreneur in Chicago, has talked about making space for “mourning”; allowing people to grieve for the “loss” of their friend. Going away parties, forums in which somebody who’s leaving can address their group or their company, celebratory social media posts. All of these sorts of things are really critical in ensuring a good experience for the person who leaves and for the people who stay. It is hard.
Just recently when an employee quit for reasons that I thought were ridiculous, I had to talk myself down from accepting their resignation immediately and just shutting down their email and sending them on her way. All this would’ve accomplished is it would’ve made me look petty, made the company look terrible and it would’ve made everybody else at Holistic think about how poorly they were treated when they left.
Remember, this is not about the person that is leaving. This is about everybody else who is staying. Focus on them.
Channel your energy into other employees for whom there may be opportunity
While we’re focused on the other employees of the company, anybody’s departure by definition is going to create a lot of new opportunities. There are gonna be some people who are ready and willing to step up. Focus on them. Get on the phone with them or in person in the conference room to talk about their future, their opportunity. Take their temperature, set them up for success.
The sun is going to come up tomorrow and you’re still going to have clients and you’re still gonna have a business to do and you knew people were focused and willing to step into the fray. People are remarkably pragmatic in that sense. The same person who is heartbroken that Michelle is leaving on Monday will gladly take Michelle’s job -- especially her title and her pay -- on Tuesday. The truth of the matter is she might’ve taken it on Monday if you would’ve offered her, but we don’t even need to deal with that right now. Someone leaving a company creates a vacuum and nature abhors a vacuum, so people will move to fill it. Lean in on this and help them do it.
Channel your energy into cost savings and resource savings
There’s an enormous opportunity to save money when somebody leaves the organization. First of all, keeping open positions for a small period of time really adds up. If a company takes exactly one month after every person leaves to fill the position, for every 12 people that leave during the year, you save an FTE. This adds up tremendously. If you can stretch out the process to make sure you find a good person and allow everybody else to step up a little bit to cover, you can often realize huge cost savings.
Furthermore, there is another source of cost savings. People frequently forgo equity or future bonuses because they wanna leave for a new opportunity. Future commissions on clients that they would’ve earned that you no longer have to pay. Sometimes somebody is at the top end of a pay band or is overpaid in one regard or another, and it’s an opportunity to right the ship a little bit.
A lot of times somebody leaving your organization can be a very roundabout way of saving tens of thousands of dollars. So think about that money, and think about how you can employ it to make things better for yourself and your team.
Channel your energy into memorializing as much value from their work as you possibly can
This is a huge one. The last few weeks of somebody’s tenure are the absolute most critical time in terms of determining whether or not they had a good run at your company. You have to really embrace this idea. An employee who spends her last few weeks diligently memorializing her work, preparing things for the next leaders of the company, getting things set up for the future; she is giving you enormous value. One really powerful way of thinking about this is that an employee who quits is giving you a glass of water that is 75% full. This represents the quality of their experience at your company and the impact that they’ve had on your business.
If they choose to spend their last few weeks adding water to the cup, they can get it to 80, 85, maybe even 90% value. If they spend their last few weeks drinking water, or even worse, pouring it on the floor, or their teammates' heads, we might end up at 50%, or lower.
One thing we like to ask everyone who leaves us is to write a list of everything that they’re working on, everything that they’ve done, anything that somebody would need to know if they wanted to pick up where that person left off. The format doesn’t matter, what’s even written doesn’t matter, the key thing is to just get as much down on paper as humanly possible. We so often see companies squander the opportunity to learn from folks who are leaving because they’re not organized in their expectations.
Channel your energy into your clients
Your clients are everything always, but now is the time that they need you the most. If the person who is leaving is client-facing, then this is a natural place to start; connecting with their clients, opening up conversations, assuring them about the future and building plans to sustain and maybe even evolve their business. And for all the rest of your clients, it’s just a reminder that this is a time to be really grateful for what you have. If you’re fortunate enough to have people pay you real money that you can spend in stores for the services or products that you provide, you better be grateful. And all of us, no matter how much time we spend meditating, doing yoga, breathing, whatever -- we all have moments where we take other people for granted. And so in a situation like this where we have a lot of energy, and some of it is pretty negative, we should channel it into checking in with and really recommitting ourselves to our clients.
“Hey Monica, I just wanted to let you know that Catheryn is leaving. We’re really sorry to see her go, but she had a wonderful tenure at Acme Barbecue and we’re really looking forward to memorializing the value of her work. We’re really proud of her and the work that she’s built with you and your company. Sheila is going to take over the account, and she’s going to be amazing. I myself will be directly involved to make sure that you’re getting everything you need. I’ve got some ideas for you and I’ll reach out this week to connect.”
Channel your energy into diversity, equity, and inclusion
There’s always a DEI impact when somebody leaves. You need to recognize this. I would argue that if a person of color or an employee who doesn’t identify as a man, or an employee who meets an inclusion standard of any sort leaves, the urgency to fill that position and to be extremely thoughtful about DEI increases. But in any case, someone leaving offers an opportunity to be thoughtful about the hiring process, who will replace them, and what will our “new” company look like.
And more than that, it’s an opportunity to reflect -- did we do anything to help or hurt this person? Did they have a level playing field? Did they have the sort of experience they were hoping for when they joined? There is a lot for us to learn.
Finally, channel your energy into your future
Lastly, you gotta look to the future. These moments are incredible natural moments for introspection. We can go back to first principles, we can ask ourselves what’s working and what’s not. We can be dispassionate and exacting.
One of the things I like to do when I personally use this technique is to write down a pros and cons list for that person. Things that they did well and things that they did poorly. Think of it as like the most brutally honest employee review ever, where you had zero regard for the person’s feelings or the future of the company. Because you’re not actually gonna show them. What you’re gonna do is you’re going to eat it.
You can use this exercise personally to evaluate how you want to change or evolve the position for the future. Whatever they did well should be memorialized. Whatever they did poorly is an opportunity for growth. The more honest you can be with yourself, the better you’re gonna be able to use this energy, and the energy that you’re feeling right now, the pain and anguish and anxiety and fear and frustration, that’s gonna be super valuable in terms of helping you think about ways to improve in the future. And it really is about the future. As much time as we spend thinking about the past, thinking about what happened, thinking about how we felt, we are missing our opportunity.
In conclusion, we never want turnover, but it’s a part of business and a part of life. It’s necessary, and it’s real. So we need to remember … our opportunity is for tomorrow. Our opportunity is for what we will build off of this. Every company has people leave. The companies that are successful worry about what’s coming next. These strategies will help you do that.
Preview of The Great Resignation Guide