Celebrate people moving on
I previously wrote how job hopping is not a good way to grow but maybe controversially, I also think we should celebrate when people are moving on.
During my career, quite a few coworkers (from my team but also people I interacted/worked with) left – either for another team, another company or sometimes for another role. There might be a lot of feelings involved:
- You may be sad that your coworker is leaving – maybe you were not friends per se but you still had a relationship with them
- You may be a bit annoyed because you need to ramp up someone else to help cover for them – though you should always make sure people can cover for each other ahead of time (people may just get sick after all)
- Etc.
All these feelings are genuine, but I think the only right answer for someone telling you they are leaving is to congratulate them, thank them for all their contributions and wish them the best in their next adventure.
In general, changing companies is a thoughtful decision, and if people have made up their mind, it’s too late to convince them to stay. If you’re a manager you should have had these discussions much earlier on. Trying to convince them to stay once they have decided just creates an awkward situation and makes their departure more difficult.
In general as much as it can be tempting to immediately ask questions like “why are you leaving?”, “where are you going?” etc., but it’s better to just let them talk – let them finish announcing their departure and finish saying what they had on their mind. Follow up by talking about how they feel – in my experience/opinion, it is much more important to connect with people and understand their position than trying to solve whatever problems may exist or worse propose solutions.
Interestingly, the world is pretty small – I’ve had ex-coworkers boomerang back in the team, join a company with a lot of them or just met some in random places (e.g. while traveling abroad).
Let’s make people growing out of their current team/company something to celebrate rather than frown upon.