Colleagues Seeking Advice

When a valuable employee approaches you (as an indirect manager) about leaving with no definitive timeline, what do you do? Help them put their exit plan in place? Tell their manager?
As an outspoken advocate of freedom (flexibity) at work and employee empowerment, I suppose it’s no wonder why employees have sought my advice on exit strategies. This past week I’ve dealt with two.

Not long after I started working at company X, an incredibly talented and well-liked employee asked my advice. “I’ve been here for 9 years and have only ever worked here. Do you think I should spread my wings and work somewhere else?”
My answer was not a simple yes or no. After assessing what he wanted to do, that he had hit his limit of learning at our company, I could give a clear answer. Yes. But telling him that leaving was the best option wasn’t without hesitation and, eventually regret. I knew we could potentially lose an extremely important resource. But I have always believed that mentoring does not mean we invest in employees to stay put and never to think beyond.

It’s inevitable that people outgrow a team, position or a company. I once worked at a Fortune 500 where I was told “As a young woman, you are making the worst mistake of your life by leaving our company”. (The “As a young woman” was fairly condescending coming from the current President of the company, but I’ll save that for another topic). I’ve never once regreted my decision to leave, as much as I still admire and follow that brand. In fact, by defying the odds, I’m better off because I followed my heart and jumped into areas of my career I couldn’t have anticipated. In fact, when I look back on my career path, it was so erratic, I couldn’t have planned it better.

Whenever we go through reviews, I’ve always asked employees what they aspire to do. We set goals, long and short, beyond what our company can offer. Hopefully we can help to pave the way for their future career development, not simply a job or role.

And that’s what I did when a recent employee approached me. He is ready to move on. And so we started to set a networking plan in place so he can try informational interviews to see what he needs to do to make a career change.

Do you have stories about helping employees or giving peers or friends advice on leaving their job?

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