Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
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Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
S4:E8 Say Goodbye: What's A Leader To Do When an Employee Leaves
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Join us, Greg and Mark, for a conversation about what steps a leader can take when an employee decides it's time to move on to new opportunities. The topics include the importance of recognizing these potential changes - be they retirements, promotions, or unexpected departures - and preparing for them proactively.
We dissect the art of retaining talent during transitional periods, underscoring the value of treating departing employees with respect, and fostering positive relationships. We highlight the significance of cross-training to avoid dependency on key individuals and ensuring role clarity for seamless transitions.
With practical tips and engaging narratives, this episode is a must for anyone leading a team.
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You're listening to Lead On with Greg and Mark, brought to you by the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units. Join us this season as we engage in conversations on leading on through times of complexity.
Speaker 2Now for your hosts, Greg and Mark you know, my buddy, what is that noise? Every episode? Yeah, I said it's greg beatboxing.
Speaker 3Oh, no, no, no I told you listen, I told you beatboxing is a lost art.
Speaker 2It it's a lost art. It's definitely lost.
Speaker 3Right, and it goes back to the beat. The break in days, remember breaking the break in, break into electric boogaloo.
Speaker 2I like the uh, the dancing with the brooms.
Speaker 3Dancing with the broom was the best turbo. That was turbo, that's it. And another was ozone, ozone and special American gladiator names.
Speaker 2They Turbo Ozone and Special K. Those are like American Gladiator names.
Speaker 3They are. Remember that show American Gladiators Yep, Nitro Ozone, Exactly yeah, they were. I love it. Love it, love it, love it Blade whatever their names were, they were all like real corny hey. So I wanted to tell you about another car experience. I know we've been talking a lot about cars this season, uh, but it has to do with just what I needed it's my wife's car, the honda pilot go ahead. Just what I needed. I love that. The cars. What was rick okasik?
Speaker 2rick, yeah right, did I say okasik or okasik? I'm not sure how he says it.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, okay, candy oh, so, yeah, so uh, along the lines of cars and music, two of our most popular topics this season which is so funny because I'm not a car guy that's all I know, but we've been talking a lot about cars, so uh, so my wife drives a honda pilot and we went to a dave matthews band show, um back in the day, back in the 90s. Uh, we used to go all the time, uh, to see dave. Um, that little little schools as well, like I think they played at like lehigh and some other small schools at one time.
Speaker 2Okay, so big, you mean like colleges, like colleges, what? Did I say you were saying schools, schools, yeah yeah. So colleges, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3So we went to a show and we went with Maria's cousin.
Speaker 2When was this? This is recently or in the 90s. This is last.
Speaker 3This is no, this is a year ago. So in the 90s and last year you went with her last year we went with her cousin to bethel woods, which is for those listeners who have never been there.
Speaker 2Great venue well, yeah, he's a superstar, right. So I mean, these are big venues, probably right amazing.
Speaker 3Yeah, huge venue. Okay, so we decided to use a park and ride. So those of you who are commuters. You know, it's essentially a parking lot where you just park your car and then you're big and then you have somebody who volunteers to drive and you you pitch in gas, money or whatever. However you decide to do it, that's like a commuter lot like a commuter lot.
Speaker 3Yeah, so we park maria's pilot there and, uh, we proceed to go with, uh, maria's cousin danielle out to bethel woods. Really good show, okay. Um he, uh, he covered sledgehammer gabriel really cool, really got into it um great venue did he cover the maker? Uh, he did not, he did not play at that time.
Speaker 2That is a good tune it's a great tune.
Speaker 3So it was a long day, a great show, but it was. I was tired coming back. So we end up getting finally getting back to pitston, where the park and ride was, and we hop in the car and and there, uh, danielle was in her car and I fired up the pilot and I went. I'm like what in the world? And they're like, does it usually sound like that? Like no, somebody stole the catalytic converter oh nice.
Speaker 3So I looked at maria and I'm like uh yeah, somebody stole the catalytic converter you knew that right away uh, we had to think through it. I'm like I know it wasn't like this when I left it. Yeah, all right. So I so I Googled it because I'm like do I need to get a tow truck? Do I need to call AAA? What do I need to do? So it said on there it's fine, just as long as you don't go more than 50 miles an hour.
Speaker 2So so fast, fast forward for you.
Speaker 3So, no, no, no. So fast forward to like two minutes later. We're traveling back and I'm like it's and I'm, and I'm like meridian, how'd you like the show? I'm like screaming. And then it was a whole production, a police report, everything else. Because, because we know the catalytic converters are stolen off and because the precious metals inside, yes, yeah, yes. So I wanted to make the connection. Go, go ahead, there's a segue. You ready?
Speaker 2I'm waiting.
Speaker 3Did you? When employees leave you valuable employees leave you Precious metals.
Speaker 1Precious metals.
Speaker 2You see, that connection.
Speaker 3Yeah, when they leave you, like in this case, our car could only go up to 50.
Speaker 2We couldn't go fast enough.
Speaker 3It was a valued piece of equipment with the car and all of a sudden it's gone. This happens to us in organizations, doesn't it?
Speaker 2Leadership yeah, we have key people that'll leave. Yeah, and leaving is not always a bad thing. People retire, yeah, they get promoted Right, they move Right, they have kids, whatever.
Speaker 3Right, and as top-level leaders, we can be selfish. I was thinking about that a lot. I mean, we don't want to lose our good people. They get it done. They specialize in their area, right, that's it.
Speaker 2And we talked recently about legacies. Right Part of your legacy should also be preparing someone to take your spot.
Speaker 1Yes, so that when?
Speaker 2you do leave, your car can continue to go over 50.
Speaker 3Your organization can continue to operate as though the catalytic converter wasn't removed Because I can't drive 55.
Speaker 2I can't drive 55.
Speaker 3Is that Cocker Sammy?
Speaker 2Hagar, wasn't it? Oh, that's of course.
Speaker 3Sammy Hagar yeah, that's the highway, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, so I did find it.
Speaker 2I mean, you're 20 things, greg, there are 20 things, so listeners it's like I have with us because it's going to be a marathon, it's going to be, it's going to be a jaunt, it's going to be a doozy.
Speaker 3It's going to be a doozy. Watch the first step.
Speaker 2I'm going to make a suggestion. Yes, can we just list the 20 things in title and then maybe we pick a few to?
Speaker 3I would like that and we'll circle back.
Speaker 2Yeah, so go ahead.
Speaker 3Let's just go through all 20.
Speaker 2Why don't you do five?
Speaker 3I'll do five. Here's the first five. Number one address the concerns of team members. Number two take a moment to pause and reflect. That's a theme for these episodes, it sure is. Number three understand the role each employee plays. Number four set departing employees up for success.
Speaker 2I know you like that one, I like that one, all right five.
Speaker 3Number five communicate with transparency.
Speaker 2On to you. I'm sorry, I stepped on you there. That's okay, I'm going to reflect on that. Number six, I was thinking five so I was like ready to go at five. I know you are Six lean on the expertise of senior leadership. Seven is avoid developing key person dependencies. Eight build a culture of continuous learning. Nine create contingency and succession plans. Consider the employees. Staying and leaving is number 10.
Speaker 3All right, so moving on. 11, make needed changes. 12, prioritize knowledge transfer procedures. Number 13, involve employees in the transition process. Number 14, express appreciation for your team. And number 15, encourage team bonding activities.
Speaker 2If anybody is still listening. 16, implement reverse mentorships, maintain support and compassion, be proactive in setting up the next stage of hiring, get the entire team on the same page and maintain honest and clear communication. 20 noble steps to take when someone leaves an organization. Yes, they are Under good circumstances, under neutral circumstances and under unfortunate circumstances. Right, that's right.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 2So let's just jump around a little bit. Okay, greg, I know that you were excited to talk about setting departing employees up for success.
Speaker 3Yes, because I think we are wired to want to hold on to people, and I don't know if it's a, it's it's innate as human beings. We want you know, when we, when we develop these relationships, we don't want to lose these relationships. But it's key and you have to really be intentional about this is you want the best for your employees, even if it's them leaving you, and not only that, you want to. You want to set them up for success. Like it says here, you want to help them to aspire to greatness and to aspiring to top leadership roles. Right?
Retaining Talent Through Transition
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't think everybody's like that. I think there are some people who want to keep folks down because they're jealous of what success someone else might have Would agree. Yeah, I mean I've been in not here, of course, but other places. I've felt like that when I was in a non-leadership position, that it was more about like the person that was supervising and like me. What? What? Me leaving Cause you and I have left jobs to move on to other organizations.
Speaker 2Like I remember, the experience I had with one boss was it was almost like um, they couldn't believe that I would leave Like something personal, like you personally, or like what's wrong with you that you would leave this place. You know what I mean. Like I think that I'm thinking I'm gonna go do great things over there, you know okay, so let's talk, but let's talk about the other side of this yeah, that's exactly if you have an employee who leaves you but doesn't even communicate with you and you find out some other way.
Speaker 3You see it in the paper or whatever it may be. You hear it from someone before they even tell you. Wouldn't you rather be in the ability to help them?
Speaker 2Well, of course, but you think of it from the lens of helping and from building capacity. Not everybody has that motivation. And so I guess the article is challenging everyone to look at it through the lens of this person. Has decided they're going to leave, so now you're in a position where your organization is losing someone.
Speaker 2Yes, might be a valuable asset. Right, the person who's leaving is leaving. That's beyond your control, so why not help them? You got it. Why not create an ambassador who, out the door, says you know, I left under the best circumstances. Bridges are still intact. That's the one thing you learn in this industry. I think all industries are probably like this, but in our industry it's a very small world, and the person who reports to you today could be your boss tomorrow. Yeah, don't burn a bridge right.
Speaker 2Well, right, like you know what I mean, I'm sure there are people who you will come across in your career. I know I have who I was a colleague with, who's now in a different position. I'm obviously a different position. You're obviously in a different position than when we started our careers. So it never makes sense to burn those bridges. If you're the employee leaving to your point, or if you're the organization losing the person, that's right, and wouldn't you rather help somebody on their way out?
Speaker 3They already made the decision, like you said. They're gone.
Speaker 2Yes, they're gone. You might as well build or continue the goodwill. Yeah, yeah, let's, let's jump around a little bit more.
Speaker 2Okay, you like this one too we could talk about this one avoid developing key person dependencies. I think the idea here is that you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket so that if Greg were to leave the organization, if I were to leave the organization, that there's some capacity that exists around that person so that when they leave the organization doesn't go. Oh my God, that's the only person here who knows how to code that database. That's the only person here who knows to do that billing. That's the only person here who has a relationship with this key customer. Like if you're in a big organization. There's nothing scarier though. Right, and let me drill down on that a little bit.
Speaker 3So I'm just thinking in practice. So, listeners, what what I think about is so I, in my previous job, we had an issue within our business office and what it had to do with is we had many employees but we didn't have clear delineations on what their responsive roles and responsibilities were. So we did it as a regular practice of updating that, especially when we had. We had two reorganizations during that where we reorganized the whole business office. Anytime you do that, it is it is absolutely necessary that you sit down and you say what are the roles and responsibilities of each of these people.
Speaker 1And.
Speaker 3I'm a vision, a visual person. I needed to see a chart and say okay, what, what are each of them doing? Now, with that being said, once you do outline those, you need to cross-train those people. Yeah, so you can't have a billing, let's just talk about billing. Or payroll, payroll, payroll yeah, if you only have one person doing payroll and, god forbid, something happens to that person and nobody else is trained, even if they're in the lottery. Yeah, yeah and they're gone, yeah.
Speaker 2You're in big trouble. That's number 12. Prioritize knowledge transfer procedures. If you lose, prioritize transferring via documentation, mentoring, all of the things that that person does. So that I mean wouldn't it be nice, right? In some industries you have maybe better standards for last days. You know other people. It's two weeks and they're out right If you can use that time. If you haven't built capacity to cross-train.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 2And wouldn't it be nice if the person agreed to stay until the replacement was there so they could train them. But if you treat the person not so well, you've disincentivized them from wanting to stay and cross-train their replacement? Yes, if you treat them well, maybe their loyalty to the organization will be a little bit more apparent and they're willing to maybe take a phone call or stay an extra week, isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2Yeah, it doesn't sort of work both ways. It does, I think, when, when key employees leave, they hold a lot of leverage over the organization, especially if there's that key person dependency that we just talked about.
Speaker 3You got it. Decision has been made their their mind. And maybe their heart is already there in the next job? Yeah, whatever it may be, of course, like they made a decision to leave for whatever reason.
Speaker 2Maybe they can't stay, maybe they're moving, maybe they're retiring.
Speaker 3Could be something like that, any of those, but how do we prepare, as leaders, to deal with this loss? That's it, okay, all right. What other ones resonated with you, mark?
Speaker 2Well, you know, here's I don't think I've ever heard this before, but it makes a lot of sense Implement reverse mentorships. So a reverse mentorship. Usually you think of an older employee. Let me rephrase that Usually you think of a more veteran, seasoned, experienced employee. It doesn't deal with age at all Mentoring a more junior, less experienced employee.
Speaker 1This is a little different.
Speaker 2This is the less experienced person mentoring the more experienced person on the day-to-day intricacies of their job, so you might supervise payroll but not know anything about payroll. This is the payroll person who actually does the job, explaining to you what they do. Yes, let me show you what I do some humility. Yeah, hey, manager, let me show you what needs to be done every friday in the event that I'm out, so that you can pinch hit for me. Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah, I don't think you know. I remember going through this. Yeah, go ahead, and there were so many intricacies with payroll, including the retirement contributions Mark, all the different taxes, like there's just so much. And when you're working with the bank, to get all the payroll submitted has to be done within a certain number of hours of it going live into direct deposits or checks.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3So I mean all those intricacies needed to be explained to us. Yeah, and it was. It was I mean we and we were there. I mean copious notes, mark.
Speaker 2I'm sure, and you know, and if the person wasn't leaving on the best of terms, maybe these steps taken during the course of the normal nine to five would have cultivated relationships or a situation where the person wouldn't have wanted to leave. Yes, exactly that's unavoidable if the person's leaving for reasons beyond their control. Right, right, you know, a lot of times we think of people leaving positions, we think of acrimony, we think of disharmony, we think of conflict, we think of sour grapes or whatever.
Speaker 3I found another one that resonates with me it's number 10. Consider the employees staying and leaving. So we take a valuable person off the team. They go, they retire, whatever it is, there are still your existing team members that you have to do some damage control with. Whatever it is, there are still your existing team members that you have to do some damage control with. So you need to. You need to have those open, honest conversations and let them know what's going on. You can't assume that they know what's going on.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, maybe there's things you can't share. Sure.
Speaker 3So honest, transparent communication that you can share.
Speaker 2And then also, if you're going to ask people to fill in in the meantime to cover someone's absence, having honest conversations about what that means in terms of their workload, what you're taking off their plate, yes. And then also, people want to know is that position getting replaced? Is it getting reclassified? If it's their supervisor, is that job going to get posted? Am I qualified? You know all of those things Like room for advancement for other employees, yeah, or if the person left under beds.
Speaker 2Can I reach out to them? Am I not allowed to reach out to them? If it's, if it's harmonious, um, you know, will that person stay and mentor me, etc. Like there's a lot of really important nuanced stuff that we're talking about here and what happens here.
Speaker 3I mean, I'm fascinated by these kinds of things, but this has to do with retention, staff retention. It becomes an issue your, your existing staff could be threatened in some way.
Speaker 2And equally importantly, with without knowledge, people fill the vacuum with their own narrative about why the person left.
Speaker 3Oh, that's the worst thing when they have a little bit of truth. They have a little bit of truth and then they make up the rest of it. Well, do one more and then wrap it up. This, actually, it's a, it's a nice tag onto that. It's express appreciation for your team. We've talked about that a lot, but valuing those people who are still with you, right, those existing team members who are fighting the good fight. They're getting the job done and they're pinch hitting for you. You need to recognize them in some way for doing that.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think people might want to debrief If the person who's leaving is toxic or if the person who's leaving has done something, and the organization has coached them on to other opportunities. It's an opportunity not to talk about that employee, of course, but to restate the norms in the organization about what you tolerate or whatever, or what you don't tolerate and if the person's leaving under great circumstances, to say thank you. We're going to celebrate your contributions, we're going to miss you, but we thank you for everything you have done.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 2And we're going to build on all the things that you've contributed and the next person's going to benefit from all the things that you've done. Thank you, congratulations. I mean, there's so many different ways to handle it, but I think the point there is the people that are sort of still in the organization, the people that are still working there. I think the point there is the people that are sort of still in the organization, the people that are still working there. Yes, they want to be a part of it. They want to know what they can know, they want to know what's allowed, what they're allowed to know, and I think they want to be reassured that everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 3That's what I think, primarily what this is getting at, yeah and and something. I've just went back through, these 20 and so and so many of them have to deal with communication. So many have to deal with communication to your own team, to your staff, to the community, so there's all these things that tie back to how we communicate that out and I just want to reflect back on it. Just think about this so you have these precious metals, yeah, and then all of a sudden you go in the next day that precious metal is gone, yeah, how do you respond? How do you move that vehicle forward?
Asset Theft and Recruitment Tactics
Speaker 2Love it. Yeah, cause you know you can't just carry an extra catalytic converter. No, you can't, no, you can't, no. But you know to extend the analogy there's always people willing to steal your best assets.
Speaker 1Yes, I mean how many. We were just downstairs, we were just downstairs.
Speaker 3You were trying to recruit one of my people right.
Speaker 2Yeah, you were trying to steal my catalytic converter.
Speaker 3Well, she loves Lehigh County.
Speaker 2You were trying to steal my catalytic converter.
Speaker 3I really was.
Speaker 2Right in front of my face.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's how it goes, buddy.
Speaker 2That's how it goes, just remember it works both ways. All is fair, yeah, all is fair in intermediate units. Let's wrap it up. Go ahead, brother.
Speaker 3So always a pleasure listeners. I thank you so much for supporting the Lead On with Greg and Mark podcast. Please share with your friends. We are looking for more listeners.
Speaker 2You sound desperate. No, we're not. We're not desperate, we're doing fine, we're doing great, we're fine, all right.
Speaker 3What was that? I don't know I love it, I love it, a great day and let's do what we're going to recruit new listeners in the usa you like how I just did that one.
Speaker 2Huh. He's like I'll be paying five dollars for every crazy bye.
Speaker 3I'm going to try 55 you said it yeah, ben Higgins.
