Whether One Employee or One hundred- How to prevent hearing the words “I Quit”

It may have been Benjamin Franklin who said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” but in our case we say: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of retention!”

No matter which end of the spectrum your business falls into, once you step over the line into “Employer” you’ve crossed a threshold that requires careful consideration. Being proactive in this step will save you future grief and challenges. It can easily be put off for later by thinking “It’s not that important right now” but later comes and it may be too late or too difficult to implement strategies that could have been easily worked out from the beginning.

We’ve been there.

As an entrepreneur and business owner, your mindset is already on a different page than the average employees whose main concerns are to show up, do my job, get out and get paid. They’re not exactly going to be 100% on board your ship sailing towards growing the company, improving sales and profits, establishing a great reputation, maintaining customer and vendor relationships and so much more! By the way, if you happen to already have these people in your team, be sure to praise, encourage, nurture and love on these people!! They are gold! (For tips on how to do this, see our other articles) But do keep reading, as this is good reference information to keep handy or pass on.

Anyway, without careful consideration you may find yourself with a silent separator in your midst. At least that’s what we called it here until we realized the concept has been coined elsewhere as “quiet quitting. Same idea and concept. Though quiet quitters or quiet quitting isn’t a new concept or behavior, it has significantly surfaced since at least 2020’s or so where the term and further discussion around this topic gained traction and popularity.

It reinforces one of the key points we emphasize with our clients. It’s typical to think the top reason most employees quit is money. In reality, it’s probably further down the list than most people realize. We’d dare say that it’s the easiest reason to give for quitting a job. But we’ve found and experienced that most of these situations actually stem from an emotionally based decision rather than a monetary one. While financial issues do play a heavy role in that decision making process, it is often weighed down even more so by the culture and emotional vibe it mingles with. But this isn’t information that most employees are willing to admit or directly share. Truth is that while you may be receiving their two-week’s notice (If you’re lucky to get that consideration at all) they’ve obviously quit long before any inkling has reached your radar. Your employee isn’t feeling heard, appreciated, needed or wanted. Perhaps they’ve attempted to address this concern but efforts have proven in vain or perhaps they’ve turned to the avoidance route, dealing out the monetary reasoning card for ease of use.

This makes it imperative to take the initiative now to curate the culture your brand, your business, your entrepreneurial journey should be aligned with in the first place. Yes, while it may evolve and changeover time, it should be doing so with a team who’s on board for the ride from day 1.

How to keep a pulse on your employee vibe?

In one word: Data or Feedback.

This inside scoop will give you the pulse of your staff. This frequent feedback is the insight needed to shift things preferably at small increments before it becomes a big inconvenient detour or derailing. It’s the data needed that will keep your ship on task and in the right direction with mindsets in check, attitudes aligned and where an excellent environment can be fostered into further success.

Savvy Tools, Big Results

While this task may fall under the hat of an HR department or person, most small businesses do not have that role available. You can just directly ask if you’re still small and have an open environment for discussion. You can also have your website team help with developing a survey page for staff to anonymously submit their feedback. For others, it may involve enlisting the help of a trusted colleague, business partner or neutral business associate that can carry on that conversation.

There are also tools available that can gather that information. Please see the reference guide available from Culture Redesigned which list 5 Tools for Data Collection. Check it out here: (Link)

If you need help with this or would like more information, reach out to our team of solutionists to discuss further.