Invest In People. Then They Leave.
This is a fact of life for any manager.
Their key role is to build a cohesive team to achieve their objectives, however within this task lies an unpleasant truth…. That team will be constantly changing and actually a key skill of any successful people manager is to manage the attrition and churn that is a natural part of the process. People leave for so many reasons. – here are just a few:
On the negative side…. They may not have been up to the job. They may not have felt at home with the company culture. They may have had personal issues. They may have had personality clashes with particular individuals. They may have felt undervalued.
On the positive side…. They may have been promoted internally. They may have been poached by a competitor for a more senior role. They may have had the opportunity to work and live overseas. They may have decided to use their entrepreneurial flair and set up their own business.
If you see your managerial role as making the most of your investment in every employee, and realising that their time with you is often limited (knowing you can’t be certain as to how long you will have them), then you should consider pouring as much of your knowledge into them in the time you have. If you do this, for the time that they were with you (and often beyond), you may be pleasantly surprised what a positive contribution they did have in growing your team (including you), as they grew themselves.
Yes, it is a wrench when they leave, but if you take the same developmental attitude with every new starter, your team cannot help but hit new heights of engagement. This continuous improvement can only be achieved if you keep investing in your people – right up to their last day and right from their first day.
Every ounce of investment in them will have a direct impact on their performance, morale, level of enthusiasm and dedication in working with you. It doesn’t matter if you think that they will be with you for the short-term or the long-term, every marginal increase in their performance and attitude will have a ripple effect across your organisation and on the overall performance of your team. This is particularly true for the initial “probationary period” that many people have when they start a new role. Some managers might wish to wait and see how someone is performing before they start to think about their development. More often than not, this is merely a wasted opportunity. If you treat every passing month and year with an employee as a bonus, and if you maximise their chances for learning, irrespective of what that learning will deliver for you in the future, you will help them to flourish.
Whether you are an experienced manager or not, you will soon realise that there is one thing in common with poor managers and great managers. They both lose people. It’s how you lose people that’s important. A great manager would never see his or her team as a “finished product” in any case. They would always be investing energy and resources into developing their people, no matter whether they have been there for 6 months or 6 years.
So, invest in your people, help them to grow. Yes, they will leave at some point, but in return they will also help you and those around them to grow. When they do eventually leave, the greatest satisfaction as a successful people leader is knowing that you played your part in the professional and personal development of your staff. Their future success will undoubtedly fill you with pride!