Why all leaders should take interest and celebrate an employee leaving

Why all leaders should take interest and celebrate an employee leaving

People leave an employer for many reasons, mostly this tends to be for career advancement, career change that may also include starting their own business, or for personal reasons such as to care for a dependent or just to have some time off. There is no doubt that someone may also leave due to team culture and fit issues, and there has recently been a lot of talk about this -often titled as “the great resignation”, whatever the reasons for leaving, there are of course lessons to be learnt by the organisation and usally received when it comes to implementing the exit consultation and the analysis.

We accept that it is inevitable that employees will come and go, some after six months, others after decades, and for many different reasons as stated. This does not and should not stop you celebrating them leaving! It is quite common practice now that many businesses commonly announce new recruits -welcome new staff on internal platforms, newsletters and even write up a press release depending on the position and personal brand of the person and celebrating new recruits is an accepted practise; what is not is celebrating leavers.

There are many good reasons why business leaders should celebrate an employee leaving, I’m just going to mention three:

1. Culture

A company culture is nurtured and maintained by how we do things and how we behave. Team members develop personal connection and bond with each other during their term of employment. We have all heard the saying that people spend more time with their work colleagues than their family.

The way a business does things is important -our focus at our business for the celebration is the person’s contribution to our work and other colleagues and the impact they have made. Every Employee leaving plan should be different and considers the individual personality. At our business each departure generally is marked with a celebration of some sort, as said this could be a team lunch, a leader with the business giving a thank-you-for-your-service speech amongst many other ways.

2. Word of mouth matters

We all trust family, friends, and peers with help for making important decisions including career move. An ex-team member can often become great ambassadors and therefore a greater marketing impact that will help further increase brand awareness and confidence in your organisation among their network within the industry.

3. Rehire opportunities 

Employees who have worked for the business sometimes come back and this can be a positive thing – this happens more often than before and has commonly been called as boomerang employees. Boomerang employment is a growing trend in general thanks to social media posts and awareness that helps people stay in contact over time, often they may not come back in the same role, but could come back in a different role, team or even as a contactor/supplier.  There is a significant advantage in terms of time, money, and performance when this happens.

Does your workplace celebrate when someone leaves and what would you ideally want as an employee when you eventually leave?

 Safaraz Ali, Co-founder & CEO of Pathway Group

p.s see an example of our celebration when one of our key members of staff moved on