Quit-Proof Your Company. Even Your Best Employees Will Leave You One Day.

In this series, professionals share all the right — and wrong — ways to leave a job. Follow the stories here, and write your own (please include #IQuit somewhere in the body of your post).

Employees will quit your company. Get over it.

Or better yet, get ready for it.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical worker has been with his or her employer 4.6 years. If you lead a department with 50 employees, that means replacing nearly one employee a month.

If you’re a great manager at a great company, you may be able to trim the turnover, but people will quit — for better opportunities, better weather, or if a spouse gets a better job. It’s inevitable.

In other words, “It’s not you. It’s not me. It’s the math.”

You’ll never beat math — so knowing that people WILL leave, you need to “quit-proof” your organization.

Here are six steps to getting the job done.

1. Document every procedure. When people leave, they take carry mission-critical with them — between their ears. That’s why you must insist that employees document what they do, and then follow the recipe to see if you can replicate their work. If you can’t, try again! And when you can, you should be as proud as the employees who suddenly realize the boss really cares what they do.
2. Learn what will NEVER be written down. There are procedures, and then there’s lore. If you have a sales team, learn about your most important customers — not only what they bought, but what drives them. That not only helps your firm make the next sales call, but informs strategic direction. Resist micromanaging. This is your time to be the student, not the teacher.
3. Cross-train your staff. There’s nothing better than a 35-year employee, until he trades in the daily grind for golf shoes. Have your managers assume each other’s roles for enough time to make “real” decisions with business consequences. That forces substitutes to be serious, and incumbents to be industrious in documenting their work (see #1 above). Fresh eyes may also uncover opportunities your “well-intentioned-but-always-done-it-that-way” incumbents might miss.
4. Have a passive external pipeline. You’re out in the community. If you see talent, reach out. Have lunch. Even if they’re not ready to move, now or after their 4.6 years, they may know colleagues seeking a change in scenery. Like a vineyard, the best time to plant the seed for a new hire is three years ago.
5. Have an active internal pipeline. Groom your all-stars for their next jobs. Give them overviews of the business. Have them follow the procedures documented in #1 above. Invite them to interesting meetings. Cultivate their careers so that when the 4.6-year itch comes along, they have no interest in scratching.
   
6. Store information centrally. Golfing may be a vice, but it’s not a sin. Other departures are less honorable. If an employee’s hard drive is the keystone holding up your entire enterprise, you’re as safe as that hard drive. Make sure your business has access to the information it needs to sustain itself, and that no one else does.
7. Make it a tough decision to leave. Yes, I said six, but this is a bonus. If your boss took the time to learn how you did your job, had regular conversations about the special things only you knew, and took a genuine interest in cultivating your career, would you leave?

Sure, you might — but it would be a whole lot harder than if you perceived yourself as a faceless cog in the company machine.

Employees will quit. It’s math.

You’ll never beat math, but you can tilt the odds in your favor.