Footsteps of Resignation

An ordinary morning at the office. People come in and, greet each other. A busy day starts for everyone. While everything goes on in its usual daily flow, things start to change with one action. The employee goes to his manager and asks, “Do you have a moment?” Then, respectively the director, HR, the whole office starts talking about this resignation news. This news is sometimes expected, but it often creates surprise, and then some questions are asked to this employee.…

“Are you certain? What can we do for you to stay?”

“I don’t think this is the right move for your career; think again.”

“We have promising plans here for you.”

“What did other company offer you? Let us make improvements in your compensation or benefits.”

But it is too late now. As a result of the employee’s experiences at their job, the employee had already lost his commitment and decided to leave long before the day he announced his resignation.

The whole team agenda changes once it becomes clear that the employee is determined to resign and seize the new opportunity. A job posting is prepared for this new vacancy, and in the meantime, a stressful handover process starts for the rest of the team.

Can we rewrite this scenario?

The concepts of employee experience and employee engagement are critical at this stage. William Kahn, a professor at Boston University, defined employee engagement in 1990 as:

“Employee engagement is the level of personal investment a person makes in their business.”

This level determines whether a person does his best in his job or leaves the job at the first opportunity. Engagement, when measured well, enables us to improve the employee experience and take early action on issues that cause us to lose talent.

The declining engagement rate gives the first signals nine months before the employee leaves the job.

A study conducted in 125 countries, compiled from the results of millions of employee engagement surveys, showed that employee engagement is the most important signal that an employee is likely to leave. Moreover, we realized that we have nine months to prevent any talent loss before resignation.

Engagement research has very critical two indicators. One of them is the “Net Promoter Score indicator,” which is used as the most basic KPI in the marketing world. The question is: “Would you recommend your company to other people as an employer?”. The other important question is: “If you get an offer from another company for the position you are currently working at, what are the chances of you staying at your current company?”

The decrease in the scores given to these two questions is the footsteps of resignation. Organizations ready to hear these steps can act before the employee is gone and have the opportunity to identify and improve “critical employee experience moments” that change or shape employees’ decisions about the company.

An adequately established feedback architecture within the company allows you to analyze the company and make the right moves at the right time. So how can we set up this structure? This is the most critical question we can help you find an answer to!

Beyza Gürsun Özden