Avoid Brain Drain When Employees Leave
Terminating employees can be hazardous enough, but when you realize that the employee you are letting go (or is resigning) may know trade secrets about your business, or otherwise have information in their mental possession that would be difficult to duplicate in another employee, it makes termination even more difficult. Avoiding brain drain at termination should be a key thought in how you not only terminate employees, but how you structure your business around your employees. Here are some thoughts:
Avoid the Revolving Door
The first step is to avoid losing key employees that carry knowledge with them or hold critical skills you don’t want to abruptly lose. You can lessen the impact by creating a deliberate and preventive process to keep people engaged and motivated about where they are in your business and where the business is going. Employees want to feel part of something bigger than themselves, no one likes to feel like a rat on a wheel in business or life. This may reduce the chances of losing someone valuable.
Cross Train
It’s very important to cross train individuals, easier for large businesses, harder for small companies. Be sure any critical functions can be handled by more than one employee. Never let yourself become beholden to one person, even if you have to make sure you as the business owner knows every critical function in your business. That key person could leave you high and dry!
Require Non-Disclosure/Confidentiality Agreements
Non-Competes are no longer valid in CA but you can still require Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA). It is wise, for employees with access to trade secrets, customer lists or anything else proprietary to your business, sign an agreement at hire. Don’t wait until you terminate an employee as it will not likely stand up in court. These agreements and their validity are complex, so get proper advice.
Job Shadowing
Job Shadowing can be used when you know an employee is leaving ahead of time and can then assign someone to shadow them as they go through their daily duties and take notes or simply learn their processes. This may be just a few days or longer if necessary or even a week or so if possible. One way to make this valuable is to video record their activities as part of the job shadowing process to avoid and missed steps.
Employee Exit Interview
An Exit Interview is a process of meeting with the employee to discuss their departure, but this is also a great opportunity to discuss projects they’re working on, processes they are engaged with that may not be documented. Great time to understand as much as you can about their daily activities, so you can ensure you don’t “drop any balls” when they leave. Make sure you get passwords, links, vendor and customer contact info that might not be in the database.
Bottom Line
Every business should proactively and deliberately manage their employees and the processes involved in their business and take steps to ensure that key employees and knowledge are identified and steps taken to protect and diversify that knowledge. The more complex your business, the more this process should be involved and the more formal it should be. (Example: A law firm or physicians office needs far more protocol than a plumbing contractor, no offense to plumbing contractors).
No matter what business you are in, don’t be left with empty hands when key employees leave, take the extra time to insure your internal processes and knowledge are protected.
If we can assist you in any way with setting up NDA’s in your business to avoid brain drain or anything else, please contact the experts at Infinium HR Group at info@infiniumhr.com.