From www.hrinasia.com
As much as recruiting and training the best talent for the right job can prove to be a time consuming affair, so is the process of retaining talent a challenge. If you find a smart worker with exceptional talent on board, then it is important for human resource managers to ensure that motivational factors to retain such great talent are deployed.
This is not just restricted to encouraging awards and performance appraisals, but goes beyond to seek and understand the vision, such employees in an organization foresee to grow with the company.
If you’re too busy to pay valuable attention to human capital requirements, then it might be quite possible for you to be surprised someday with the sneaky happenings behind your back.
Some of the warning tell-tale signs that indicate discontent among great employees looking for a job change or planning to quit are:
- Prolonged lapses in quality or efficiency
While occasional slip-ups are understandable, but prolonged lapses in quality and efficiency with sloppy work habits followed by a great employee show signs of discontentment. This means the employee has called it “quits” on his mind.
- Using excessive personal or vacation time
This definitely doesn’t mean that great workers never fall sick or go on a personal vacation. However, you need to maintain a strict vigil if a great employee is taking time off from work for personal reasons stating medical grounds or seeking extension on a vacation period.
Excessive leaves show lack or loss of interest towards the job on hand and it may be no sooner then you realize that this great employee has taken up a new job and put down his papers.
See: Think About It, Why Do Employees Quit Their Job
- Keeping odd hours at work
Arriving late and leaving early from work citing reasons personal or requesting random days off are signs to be on watch out for by the HR.
Also spending time in isolation attending to calls during work hours sneakily with frequent trips away from desk are indicators that the employee is planning to abandon the ship and go off board soon.
Continued strange behavior is an alarming sign conflicting with work, which means you need to talk to this employee and see issues if any bothering on the personal front (let’s assume) can be sorted out.
- Lack of Interest and Reluctance to Commit
Reluctance to commit to long-term projects, with decreased interests in advancing the organization and avoiding social interactions with members and bosses of the company, such behaviors clearly demonstrate that this great employee is about to quit.
- Previous Job Tenure can be Predictive Indicators
Sometimes an average tenure in the last few jobs is predictive indicator on when an employee might quit or start looking. They also at times indicate the employees’ attitude towards life and work.
It is important for an HR manager to stay vigilant on why this frequent quitting and hopping is happening with an employee. It is important to hold a conversation with such employees to identify reasons on why an employee quits often.
To conclude
While it is always in the best interest of an organization to retain best employees, sometimes letting them go is the best answer. The sooner you discover that a great employee is planning to quit, you have time to allow room for discussion on areas of discontentment on job and then can you work towards it.
This is all in hopes of making the workplace a better level playing field for competent professionals to learn and grow with the company.
