Should Companies Encourage Their Best Employees To Leave?

Why Best Employees Sometimes Need Experience Somewhere Else

No company can give every employee every experience. For example, someone may want responsibility for a larger team, exposure to a different industry, or experience with a new technology. You can offer training and development, but there are some things people learn only by doing them.

That creates a difficult situation for leaders. You may have an excellent employee you would hate to lose while also knowing that the next experience that person needs does not exist inside your organization. Keeping that employee may solve an immediate problem for the company, but it also may keep that person from gaining experience that could make them far more valuable later.

When Keeping Your Best Employees Can Become Too Important

Retention is usually treated as a sign of success, particularly when the people leaving are high performers. If your best employees resign, leaders want to know why. Sometimes there is a problem that needs attention.

There are also departures that have very little to do with whether the company is a good place to work. An employee can be happy, respected, well paid, and still need an experience you cannot provide.

That distinction is important because leaders can become so focused on what the company is losing right now that they never consider what that employee might bring back later. Providing more money or a new title may keep someone another year, but it will not necessarily give that person the experience that caused them to consider leaving in the first place. If they leave on good terms and gain something your company could not provide, that experience may eventually benefit both sides.

What Your Best Employees Could Bring Back

The idea of an employee leaving and later returning used to seem unusual. Today, most people have heard the term boomerang employee. What interests me more is what happens during the years between leaving and returning.

Imagine someone leaves your company and spends four years working in a different industry. They see different customers, systems, leadership styles, competitors, and ways of solving problems. If that person eventually returns, you are getting someone who already understands your organization but now has experience your organization could never have provided on its own.

That can be extremely valuable. One of the biggest risks inside any organization is becoming too accustomed to the way things are done there. Someone who has worked somewhere else has comparisons. They have seen what another company does better, what it does worse, and what assumptions your organization may have stopped questioning.

Of course, there is no guarantee that someone who leaves will ever come back. That does not mean the departure has no future value. What matters is whether the relationship remains strong enough that the employee would consider working with the company again in some capacity.

When You Should Fight To Keep Your Best Employees

There are plenty of times when losing a strong employee should cause a company to act. If someone is leaving because a manager has ignored their development, their compensation is far below market, or they have repeatedly asked for opportunities that could reasonably have been provided, that is a different situation. A good leader should be able to tell the difference between an employee who needs something the organization could provide and one who genuinely needs to go somewhere else to get it.

That may require a more candid conversation than the typical retention discussion. Instead of immediately asking, “What would it take to keep you?” you could ask what the employee wants to learn next, what experience they feel they are missing, and whether that opportunity realistically exists within the company. Sometimes the answer will lead to a new internal opportunity. Sometimes it may confirm that leaving makes sense.

How To Leave The Door Open For Your Best Employees

The way a company handles someone’s departure can determine what kind of relationship exists afterward. Employees remember whether leaders were supportive or resentful when they resigned. You can make it clear that leaving for a good opportunity does not erase everything the employee contributed while they were there.

Former employees can become future employees, customers, partners, referral sources, or advocates for your organization. That is one reason companies may want to think beyond the immediate loss and consider the longer relationship.

You also might want to ask a question that companies rarely ask during exit interviews: What experience are you leaving to get that you could not get here? The answer could tell you something useful about opportunities your organization may need to create for others.

Should Companies Encourage Their Best Employees To Leave?

Companies do not need to start pushing talented people out the door. They may need to reconsider the assumption that every departure represents a loss. Sometimes an employee needs an experience the company simply cannot provide, and trying too hard to prevent that move may not serve either side very well. The bigger question may be what kind of relationship you have built with your best employees by the time they leave. If they still want your company in their professional life years later, letting them leave may have been one of the best decisions you made for both of you.Top of Form