How to Handle an Employee's Resignation - An IAM Group Limited Singapore Advice

IAM Group Limited

You have to think of long term, your business, and your employees.

Think of yourself as the business owner, no one in your company should not be replaceable at any time, including yourself. With that in mind, you should have everything every employee, manager, officer does written down and reviewed quarterly to add or make changes. It is so you don’t need those two weeks to find out what that person does or try to figure out what they did after they are gone. And beyond that what happens if someone gets sick or just disappear or just cannot go to work due to personal reasons?

Cutting their two weeks short might breed bad employee departure notice, it might not. Employees leave for two reasons, one they have to or two they want to. The want to ones most of the time are moving on to something better or just want out. They are dead weight. The have to ones usually don’t want to leave but need to and most of the time the faster they get out of the company the better, but not always, they might want to stick around and work. There is always an exception to everything.

When people leave it is something you will need to address with your employees. They don’t need to know the exact details, but enough. “Scott will be leaving soon and will no longer be working with us. Until we find someone new Scott’s job will be divided up. The respective employees will be notified of extra duties. Contact Bob, he will be managing Scott’s duties, while Scott is still here and after he leaves. We are sorry to see Scott go and we thank him for all the time he has spent with us.” If you have done your diligence and created a healthy work culture, the other employees will understand it’s time to move on – Scott is leaving. If they don’t then there is work to do on your culture. In a bad work culture, this is the least of your worries. It is a high time to deal with your work culture first.

Don’t rely on the person leaving to train the new employee, that isn’t their job and why would you want them to? Plus you have everything written down to train them. You don’t want bad habits from the previous employee instilled in the new one.

What about the employee finishing up projects or work? It is nice that the employee wants to help and finish things up and gets things in order for the next person. Maybe that is someone who stays on for the two weeks. But that again isn’t their job or responsibility, it is the manager or boss to delegate what needs to get done and what the new employee comes in to.

What about “maybe the employee needs those last two weeks of pay”? They should have thought of that before putting in their two weeks. If they need those two weeks of money, then they should have waited two weeks or saved more. It is not the business’s responsibility to make sure each employee is all good financially before they leave.
Handling a sub-ordinate’s resignation is tough. It stems from personal feelings and emotional investment in a person. It can kill a company and ruin morale if not dealt with properly and understood. That doesn’t mean being a rude either. It just means you should understand the bigger picture and your emotions and your employee’s emotions and dealing with them in a smart thought out manor.

IAM Group Limited Singapore helps out managers with a set of processes and guidelines to properly handle an employee’s resignation. People coming from far places like Yokohama Japan, Beijing China, Saigon, Vietnam and the likes are often strict about policies in their workplace. It is the main part of their life. Members from different parts of the world pitched in their opinions on matters how to make someone who is resigning felt welcome after they handed their letter. The group has been a great help so far and it is very helpful to read some of their newsletters if you are in middle management.