How to lose a good employee in 30 days

“Another one of my team members left without giving a reason.” This was Rancy, pouring her heart out as she lost third team member in her content team within a month. I and Rancy have known each other from our first job. We started our career together, me as a marketing professional and she as a writer. Today she is successfully running her content marketing company.

But, things have not been good off lately in her company. She’s been losing employees quite regularly, without any reason. And, this fact gave me the idea for my next post which I am going to share with you all here.

“Don’t let poor project management become a barrier in your success.  Start using ProofHub.’‘

Let us take a look -

Make them swim against the tide

The worst thing you can do as a Manager is to try and change the way a person does his or her job and carry themselves at work. Every individual has a personal preference and style of working, which is part of their personality. Not everyone is always chirpy and blabbery.

By not understanding their personality type, and trying to convert them into something they are not you are certainly giving them the early signs to move on from your team.

Micromanage them at each level

A manager who micromanages the team is sowing seeds for losing the employees. If you have hired someone on the basis of their credibility and expertise, give them the freedom to bring that expertise out and do things using the best of their abilities.

Micromanaging employees at every level can cause doubt to creep up in their mind that you don’t trust them. You don’t have faith in their abilities and this could be a big reason for employees to think of moving on from a place where their abilities are not trusted to a place where they can have the trust.

Turn a deaf ear to their ideas

Now that you have already sown the seeds of doubt in the mind of employees, the next step is to turn a deaf ear to their ideas. By turning a deaf ear to their ideas you are going one step beyond the regular to irritate them.

No employee appreciates the fact that their ideas are never listened to and their voice is never heard. And, this is the third stage of making the employee lose interest in work and get inspired to look for better opportunities outside.

Rewards or recognition — a BIG NO

Nothing works better in encouraging the employees to stick to an office than appreciation for the work they have done. But, here we are talking about losing the employee. So, there is no scope of recognition of the efforts they are putting at work.

Whether it is delivering more than expected at work or helping team members, you need to make sure that all these efforts are never brought up-front. By doing so, your efforts to get the employee to leave the organization can eventually work without any limitations.

Criticize them in public

Just to make sure that there is no stone left unturned to irritate your team members to the core, the next thing you can do is to criticize them in public. Forget about praising them at any level.

If you have been doing it, knowingly or unknowingly, then congratulations — you are already at the advanced level of mastering the art of losing employees. And, now there are just a few steps more to become a pro at it.

Don’t give them opportunities to grow

From not appreciating their efforts and what they are doing for your business, the next thing that you can do to lose your employees is to suck the air out of their lungs. No, not literally. What I mean here is to take away every opportunity of growth from them.

By overloading them with so much tasks that they cannot even take a breather at work, you can eventually nip them in the bud. And, that’s how you are reaching one step closer to losing your employee.

Hiring people is an art, and so is losing them

People don’t leave companies, they leave managers. And, so true it is. A manager serves as the sternum, around which the team members stick together to form the rib cage that protects the business. But, when you start doing any of the things mentioned above you start to intoxicate the employees and force them to leave for something better.

The motive behind this post is to make you realize that we all managers are making at one level or the other, knowingly or unknowingly. And, then we keep wondering why did the employee leave you for some other company?

If you don’t want to be a living example of the guide to losing an employee in 30 days, it is time do some self analysis. It is time to figure out what you are doing out of the points mentioned above, or anything else that might play role in making the employees leave your team for some other opportunity.

Coming back to Rancy’s story

Getting back to from where we started, I discussed all these things with Rancy as well. And, after the discussion she came to the realization that the pressure of clients, having too much on the plate always and being engrossed in too much work all the time had made her a leader whom even she herself would not want to be associated with.

After the realization, she has come to peace with her demons that were making her do all the wrong things a leader could possibly do to her team. In fact, this entire discussion took place almost a couple of month’s back. Now that she has mend her way as leader, people at her office are really happy. In fact, Rancy texted me yesterday that she had even managed to bring back one of the guys who had left her team a little while back.

So, do you want to lose a good team member in 30-days?

Coming to the end of this post, I have just one question for everyone reading this post — do you want to be a manager who gives people reasons to leave an organization or someone who makes sure that people stick together forever?

The choice is yours.

Originally published on Medium

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I’m going to host the next #ProofHubChat on Twitter 22nd December on the topic — LinkedIn Marketing. Would love to see you participate.

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Vartika Kashyap runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. She is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

Also follow our company page @ProofHub to get the recent updates about our tool, published articles, motivational quotes & presentations.

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