Chapter 8
Game Over

You’re typing away at an email when you notice a figure approaching to your left out of the corner of your eye. You finish your sentence with a full stop and hit send, at the same time swiveling your chair to face your visitor. It’s Sam.

“What’s up?”

“Have you got a minute?” she replies.

“Sure thing. Shoot!”

“Can we grab a room?”

You nod and stand up, looking around at the meeting-room doors.

“Fermat’s free,” you say while pointing to the corner of the office. You both begin walking over there.

“Is everything OK?” you ask.

“Yeah, just something I wanted to talk to you about,” Sam replies.

She enters the room and you follow. You close the door behind you and switch on the light. You notice that Sam hasn’t taken the seat at the table. Her body language has become more awkward. There’s an uncomfortable silence. Sam breaks it.

“I’m handing in my notice. I’m hoping to leave at the end of this month.”

You feel your cheeks flushing red.

“You’re leaving? What’s going on?”

“As of this morning I’ve accepted an offer elsewhere, so I’m looking to wrap everything up in the next four weeks so I can start there on the first of next month.”

You didn’t see this coming. You’re not entirely sure what to say. You fumble around your brain for some words.

“I’m…sorry to hear that. Let me know if there’s anything you need while you’re still here.”

Sam nods. “Will do,” she says. She smiles and exits the room.

You feel instantly stupid. Why didn’t you ask where she’s going? Why’s she going? Was it the money? Was it the project? And when did she even have interviews at other companies when she’s been here every day for the last few months? And aren’t you meant to now go and give her a counteroffer to try to keep her at the company? Oh, but you didn’t even ask what the new job was and what it was paying!

You sigh and lean against the door. What should you do next?

If you’re a manager, then this is going to happen to you. People will always leave. Sometimes you’ll see it coming, sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you’ll want them to leave. Sometimes you’ll make them leave. Either way, you’re going to need to get comfortable with the fact that there will be a natural turnover within your team that you’ll never be able to win against.

In this chapter we’re going to be exploring all of the wonderful ways in which people are going to leave your team. And they will, believe me. You’re going to learn the following:

• That people will always leave. It’s a fact of life. We’ll look at studies that show what sort of turnover you should expect and how it can actually be beneficial.

• How to know when people should go with your blessing. Sometimes people will leave for good reasons. What are they, and how should you handle them?

• How to fight for staff to stay. Your best staff will be hot property on the job market and a highly paid job offer is only a LinkedIn message away. How can you try to prevent staff from leaving, and is it possible to predict?

• How to make people leave. Lastly, there will always be people that are bad performers that you’ll need to address. We’ll look at a common way of addressing performance issues: Performance Improvement Plans.

Are you ready to tackle the hard stuff? Let’s get going.