What to Do When the Star Employee of Your MSP Company Leaves
Your MSP company will go through personnel with time. No one is going to stick with you forever–well, statistically, very few employees will. You might even have partners pursue new opportunities. It’s better to avoid lamenting such a situation. Instead, determine means of addressing it.
Tips in Handling the Loss of a Star Employee
Hopefully, your best employees stay with you until your startup is an enterprise. But if they’re exceptionally good, their rate of skill expansion may overreach your operation’s outward growth.
Accordingly, they’d be hurting themselves if they stayed with you when better opportunities developed. So expect this to happen eventually, and use these tips to manage the situation:
The Exit Interview
Your MSP company leaders need to sit down with an employee leaving your business and figure out why. Sometimes they are disgruntled, sometimes there’s a medical or family issue.
Sometimes there are new opportunities, sometimes there’s something you’re doing they don’t like, and which they think can’t be changed when you can alter operations and so keep the employee. Exit interviews are quite important.
End Gossip with Truth and Distribute New Opportunities
When a high-profile, top-tier employee leaves, the rest will gossip. Stop that immediately with the truth, whatever it is. Don’t tiptoe around it, don’t be vague. Say what happened, and move on.
There are vacant positions that now need to be filled, and this can mean a pay increase for other existing employees. Point that out and get the responsibilities of the old employee distributed.
Round Up Other Key Employees and Conduct “Stay” Interviews
Another step worth doing is finding other employees who may have similar opinions to those of the key worker who left. Conduct stay interviews to determine if they have any gripes you can address, and ensure they’re not thinking of jumping ship as well.
Recovering from the Loss of Key Personnel
It makes sense for your MSP company to conduct exit interviews, squelch gossip, and conduct stay interviews whenever you lose a key employee. It’s going to happen eventually, so prepare in advance.