A senior-level employee walks into your office with an uneasy look and says, “There’s something I need to tell you.” Almost instantly you can read their expression and tone: They have found another job.
During the conversation, you push your fears to the side and congratulate their success. But when they leave your office, the anxiety-inducing questions may begin: What will happen to their key projects? How will you find someone as good? Why did they really leave? Will you lose momentum?
If handled correctly, these questions and the transition itself can propel your company into a new phase of growth. Read on to learn how to manage a significant transition at your organization.
1. Prepare
Succession Planning
Succession planning is the process of identifying a pipeline of talent who can assume interim or permanent positions when leaders depart. Usually, this is reserved for top positions, but creating a plan for every position, including skilled non-management roles, will leave you ready for every transition. Executive search firms can be helpful partners in developing organization-wide succession plans.
Notice Periods
The standard notice period for many positions in the U.S. is just two weeks — or none at all. In contrast, many European countries have up to four-month notice periods as part of national employment law, even for non-management positions. The minimum is often one month.
When aligned with state and nationals laws, you may want to consider longer notice periods to offer your employees security against sudden removal and allow you additional time during transitions to get the right person in place. Even if you choose not to amend employment contracts, you can set a cultural standard of giving as much notice as possible. This can work particularly well when employees are highly engaged in the organization’s mission and want their positive legacy to be upheld.
Measure Employee Satisfaction
As artificial intelligence and machine learning technology mature, you can use cutting-edge tools to gather data and measure employee satisfaction and engagement. When problematic data patterns are identified, you can work with these at-risk employees to address problems and improve performance, rather than letting issues expand unnoticed. The best way to handle employee transitions is to prevent ones that do not need to occur.
2. Build Flexibility Into Your Culture
Unforeseen circumstances can disrupt even the most detailed plans, so your entire culture and organizational protocols must support change management. This is especially true for employee transitions. Business strategy is often tied to individual sponsors, so it is easy to lose momentum if you are not prepared to pivot, and the departure of key stakeholders can leave teammates extremely unnerved if the culture is not shock-resistant.
Embracing change also pays great dividends when attracting and onboarding new talent. If you are prepared to follow a different vision for the position, you are more likely to draw on the strengths of the new employee, rather than trying to mold new talent to fit existing models.
3. Manage Reactions
Your succession plans are in place and flexibility is a crucial part of your organizational culture. Now it is time to take care of your emotions. When a valued employee hands in their resignation, before you take any action, find a quiet space to write down all of your thoughts and feelings. Slowing down and processing your emotional response will protect against acting irrationally or impulsively.
Case Study: A manager was so upset about their star employee leaving, they cut all communication to a bare minimum during the notice period. The departing employee could not get information about key projects, and they felt very uncomfortable coming to work for those final weeks. As a result, the succession was severely limited.
If departing employees are excluded from key meetings, conversations and decisions, their investment in making the transition a success will drop rapidly. Check in with yourself and your colleagues to make sure that dysfunctional behavior or disengagement is not sabotaging a successful transition. Every employee should feel like a valued stakeholder until their very last day.
4. Seize Opportunity
Once you have tempered your emotional reaction, reviewed your existing succession plans and evaluated the departing employee’s role and project ownership, you are ready to seize the many opportunities presented by employee transitions.
First, conduct interviews with the departing employee and your colleagues. Use this transition to find out what is working and what is not. You can ask questions like, "If you had 100% control of organizational strategy, what would you do with this position?"
Second, if you have not done so already, conduct market mapping with a search firm. Here you can learn what is working for others, review skill profiles and gather a pool of potential candidates.
Case Study: For a long time, a senior leader had been covering two roles due to their broad skill set, leading on technology strategy as well as managing an extensive digital marketing program. However, during exit interviews, it became clear that this spread was one of the reasons for the departure. By combining this information with a comprehensive review of competitor structures, the organization decided to split the marketing and technology roles and achieved a considerable improvement in productivity.
If the succession involves senior leadership positions, executive search firms can be invaluable in guiding you through the entire process and bringing in highly talented executives for consideration. Transitions also provide a prime opportunity to boost diversity, so do not be afraid to ask search firms or your HR team to present a diverse slate of candidates.
Finally, review all of the information you have gathered so far and sketch out your plan to evolve and grow through this transition. Present any strategic or HR changes to key stakeholders and gain buy-in from the executive team. Now you are in a great position to celebrate the departing employee to their last day and beyond while capitalizing on the exciting future ahead.
