Losing a good person from your team is never an easy thing to swallow. They are leaving to either go on to bigger and better things for their career or because you`ve not done enough to meet their development ambitions. Whatever the reason, from the day they hand notice employers should be bending over backwards to make the employee feel special. Some companies view departing people as `dead stock`, they see them as just taking up space in the office for the next 1 to 3 months and not doing anything productive.
Employers need to make the most of the notice period, why?
1) Employees are the messengers to the world, they are the ones creating the reputation of your company as an employer. As the old saying goes `bad news travels faster and farther than good news` and that couldn’t be truer in this case. The real estate industry is small, thus, the pool of people you are trying to recruit from is small so you don’t need that pool muddied by a former employee with a grievance about how they were treated on their last days.
2) Your former employee could very easily become your client in the future. This can often be the case when someone starts off in agency for example and then moves to client side. Depending how you treat them will determine whether or not you get future business from that person / client.
3) Leave the door open for a return. It’s only natural that sometimes the grass seems greener on the other side but it’s not always the case. Your employee may enjoy your environment but there may be a glass ceiling on their head, they go out get some more experience and then come back at a high level when an opening arises. Again using agents as an example, it’s very often they leave to client side but often find it not as challenging as agency so they return. Make sure you as the employer give them the comfort to come back.
The world is small, the real estate market is small, CEE is small. Life is too short to bear grudges so why cut off your nose to spite your face by slamming the door closed on a departing employee.
I’ll be very interested to hear peoples thoughts on this.
