Employee turnover is a big problem for businesses. Once you’ve spent ages finding the perfect employee and training them, and they’ve been doing the same job for years, it’s a real shame to lose them and have to start over again. It’ll take a new employee a long time to get to their level and that has a big impact on your company. That’s why it’s so important that you treat your employees well and give them good benefits and opportunities for progression so they don’t start looking elsewhere for another job. But sometimes, there’s nothing you can do and one of your employees will decide to move on. When you lose a great employee, it can feel like you’ve got a big hole in the business. But it doesn’t have to have a negative impact on the business if you know how to deal with it properly. Here’s what to do if you lose one of your best employees.

Have A Debrief Meeting

When an employee is leaving, you should consider it an opportunity to learn about your business. Have a debrief meeting with them and ask why they’re leaving? It might have nothing to do with the company but in some cases, they’ll highlight issues that you can tackle in the future to improve things for the rest of your employees. There are also a lot of loose ends that you need to tie up. For example, if they’ve got information about customers on their personal computer, you need to make sure that everything is deleted and they’ve handed back any sensitive documents they might have. This is very important because you’re breaking data protection law if somebody that doesn’t work for the company is still in possession of sensitive data. It also can’t hurt to have a wider meeting with the rest of your company, perhaps with conference rooms for rent, so you can plan your next steps going forward.

Work Out What Made Them Great

This is an important step in the process of replacing that employee. Their qualifications and experience in the role is part of what made them great at their job but there’s more to it than that. Were they the kind of person that managed their team well? Did they have a good eye for creative problem solving? Working out what qualities helped them to succeed will give you a better idea of what you’re looking for in their replacement.

Knowledge Transfer

There is a lot of knowledge and expertise that nobody else around the office has. When you lose a good employee, you lose a wealth of knowledge about their role. It’s important that you transfer that knowledge to the rest of your employees and eventually, to the replacement that you hire. That’s a pretty tough job so you should get in touch with a knowledge transfer specialist like Steve Trautman who has good experience in this area. It’s important that you make the transition as smooth as possible so productivity isn’t affected.

Hire Quickly

It’s important that you hire the right person who has all of the same qualities as your previous employee, but you can’t afford to take your time. The longer you’re waiting, the more damage you’ll do to your business. So, make sure that you hire well, but also make sure that you do it quickly.

Losing a great employee is always tough but as long as you handle it in the right way, you can get things back on track quickly.