Turning employee departures into opportunities
In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss how agency owners should handle situations when an employee resigns. They explore the emotional reactions owners might have, the importance of maintaining professionalism, and the need to gather more information from the departing employee. They emphasize the value of a cooling-off period to devise a rational plan and the potential for restructuring the team. Chip and Gini also talk about seeking feedback from remaining team members to ensure a smooth transition and mitigate the risk of more employees leaving. They stress seeing an employee’s resignation as an opportunity to learn and improve the business. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Try to extract as much information from that departing employee as possible because even if it doesn’t change that individual’s situation, it may help you to be a better employer or learn from the experience in another way.” Gini Dietrich: “It’s good to get some more information and understand where they’re coming from before you freak out internally. Chip Griffin: “Don’t try to talk them out of it. Even if they agree to stay, it’s only a matter of time before they come back to their original decision, which is to move on.” Gini Dietrich: “Use it as an opportunity to look at how to restructure things so that it’s better for your business overall.” Related The value of employee exit interviews for agencies When clients want to poach agency employees View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: Gini, I quit. Gini Dietrich: No, you can’t quit. No. Chip Griffin: You’d have to hit the record button yourself. Gini Dietrich: All by myself. That’s not fun. I already do one by myself. I don’t wanna do this one by myself. You can’t quit. Sorry. Can’t quit. Chip Griffin: Okay. All right. Well, I guess I won’t then. Gini Dietrich: Okay, thanks. That was easy. A lot easier than if an employee quits. Chip Griffin: Lot. Well, lot easier because you know, I mean, if I quit and the show goes away, eh, you know, it is what it is. Gini Dietrich: No, it’s terrible. Chip Griffin: I’m sure many, many of you, one of you, someone might be disappointed occasionally. anyway. So we, we are gonna talk about what to do when an employee comes to you and says. I quit. Oh, they usually don’t say it quite that way. I mean, oh, it’s not like in the, you know, TV or the movies where someone comes in and yells, I quit. Gini Dietrich: Well, I quit a job that way once. Chip Griffin: I’ve, I’ve certainly had ones I wanted to quit that way, and Gini Dietrich: I did. And then he yelled back, you can’t quit. You’re fired. And I said, you can’t fire me. I already quit. Chip Griffin: I mean, I did, I very frequently, I think probably just about every job I ever had after I gave my notice, I would, I would walk around for the remainder of my time saying, what are you gonna do? Fire me? right. So I, I’m, I’m sure those final two weeks were incredibly annoying for my bosses, but it is what it is. It’s funny. But you know, it is one of those things where at, at some point or another everyone who owns an agency and has employees, they’re gonna have employees come to them and, and let them know that they’re giving their notice because they’re moving on to something different. Yep. And you know, I, I think many times, and, and for the sake of this episode, we’re gonna assume this is an employee that you actually think is, you know, doing a decent job and all that. Not someone where you’re like, oh, thank God I thought I was gonna have to fire them, but because I’ve had those too. Sure. For sure. I’ve had the ones where I’m like, oh yeah, no, this person’s gotta go. And then they come in and they quit and I’m like, oh, that’s too bad. Gini Dietrich: That’s too bad. Chip Griffin: Oh, I’m s