One of your most depended on employees walks into your office, closes the door, and hands you a letter. By the time you’re reading it, they’ve already accepted another offer.
How you handle the next two weeks matters more than most business owners realize.
Don’t react in the room
Your first instinct may be to make a counteroffer. More money, a new title, a promotion that’s been overdue. Resist it.
Counteroffers rarely work. The employee has already mentally left. They’ve interviewed elsewhere, accepted an offer, and committed to a start date. Even when a counteroffer is accepted, the underlying reasons they wanted to leave don’t disappear. Most business owners who make counteroffers find themselves in the same conversation again within a year, except this time with less leverage and less trust on both sides.
Accept the resignation professionally, thank them for their service, and let them go with goodwill intact.
Also resist the urge to let them go immediately. But if you do, check with your state laws on this first, and please pay them the two weeks they gave in their notice period.
Secure your operations immediately
Before the end of that first day, think through the following:
What does this person know that no one else does? Client relationships, vendor contacts, process knowledge, system access, passwords. If that information lives only in their head, your first priority is getting it documented before they walk out the door. Keep this in mind as you continue to hire. How do you ensure going forward that information is properly documented and stored?
What accounts, systems, and tools do they have access to? Work with whoever manages your IT to identify everything that will need to be transferred or revoked on their last day.
Who are your clients that have a direct relationship with this person? Those clients need to hear from you personally before they hear it any other way. A quick call goes a long way toward maintaining confidence in your firm.
Have an honest conversation about their transition
Most departing employees, when treated with respect, are willing to help. Ask them directly what they can accomplish in their remaining time. Knowledge transfer, documentation, introductions to key contacts, training a successor if one exists. You won’t get everything you want, but you’ll get more by asking than by assuming.
Keep the tone professional throughout their notice period. How you treat people on the way out is noticed by everyone still in the building.
Resist the urge to fill the role too quickly
The instinct when someone leaves is to replace them as fast as possible. That urgency is understandable, but moving too fast leads to a bad hire, and a bad hire at the leadership level is far more costly than a temporary gap.
Before you post a job or call a recruiter, take a few days to think clearly about what you actually need. Is the role the same as it was? Has the business changed enough that the position should look different? Is this an opportunity to restructure how work gets done?
The answers to those questions should drive what you hire for, not the panic of an empty chair.
Understand what the departure is telling you
Good people leaving is rarely random. It’s worth asking yourself honestly whether this resignation is an isolated event or a signal of something broader. Compensation, culture, leadership, growth opportunity. You don’t need to overreact, but you do need to listen.
Exit interviews, done well, can surface information you won’t get any other way. Keep it conversational, not defensive, and you may learn something useful.
When you’re ready to move
If the position needs to be filled at the director, VP, or C-suite level, a retained search is worth serious consideration. The cost of a wrong hire at that level, in time, in disruption, and in the damage it does to your team, far exceeds the cost of doing the search right.
RFT Search Group has worked with business owners across Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio for over 14+. We work on a retained basis, which means we’re committed to one search, your search, until it’s done right. If you’re facing that conversation right now, we’re a good place to start.
Call us at 248-957-6598 or visit our contact page.
Linda Ferrante is Co-Founder and Director of Recruiting Operations at RFT Search Group. When you’re ready to replace a key hire the right way, learn more about how we work or read about our 5-Year Commitment.
If you’re a professional navigating your own exit, read: Resigning the Right Way.