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Some people leave with two weeks’ notice. Some leave with none. Some stop doing the thing you counted on for five years, because they were doing it from memory. You can’t control that. You can control how much your business…
Sometimes leaving is the right outcome. I’ve watched it happen. Think about the employee everybody loves. Friendly. Nobody wants to lose them. They miss deadlines and quietly hand their work to the people around them. Everyone knows it. Nobody says…
Most job ads tell me what the company wants. Three years of experience. Clean driving record. Good communication skills. Must be dependable. Then they tell me what I get. $22 to $26 an hour. Health insurance. PTO. A 401(k). That’s…
A lot of small businesses don’t have a recruiting process. They have an emergency response. Someone quits. You post the job. You check applications. You interview a bunch of people. You hire someone. You take the ad down. You stop…
There’s a moment almost every owner knows. “Hey, do you have a minute?” The door closes. And somewhere in the next thirty seconds you realize everything is about to break. That feeling tells you exactly what you built. If someone…
Your turnover rate is a vanity metric. It tells you how many people left. It doesn’t tell you anything that matters. Two companies. Both have 30 employees. Both lose six people this year. 20% turnover. At the first company, four…
One resignation doesn’t tell you anything. Someone quits. You want to know why. You want to know what you did wrong. You want to know if you should have seen it coming. But one person leaving is noise. It doesn’t…
When someone quits, the first thing that happens is you become them. Not for a week. For however long it takes to hire and train a replacement. Maybe it’s three months. Maybe it’s six. During that time, you’re doing your…
“I need better employees.” Sometimes that’s true. There are people who won’t meet reasonable expectations no matter how clearly you explain them. But before deciding you need better employees, ask this: What would a better employee actually do differently on…
“Nobody stays.” When you’ve hired three or four people and watched every one of them leave, it’s hard not to start thinking this way. Maybe people just don’t stick around like they used to. Maybe it’s the labor market. Maybe…
