Life-cycle of a Resignation

When someone asked me the meaning of resignation? The simplest form of answer was leaving a workplace. However, when one thinks about it as a terminology and the overall chain of events, it definitely cannot be termed in a single word ‘Leave’.

The lifecycle of a resignation runs upto 1-3 months from pulling down the curtains perspective, however in reality it’s a longer process for the employee as well as the employer. This doesn’t happen in one day and can be sensed as coming. The way this resignation process evolves, in my opinion the industry (especially the Knowledge One) need to understand and come out with a robust model to sustain the retention, individual growth as well as work extensively towards mutual returns with the employee.

Few terms form an important phase of the process and need to be closely studied and mitigated ensuring the churn is at minimum. I have tried to look at the resignation from employee and organization perspective:

Resignation - By the meaning of it, is a withdrawal from any role , position and organization. But in reality, it’s a thin line between the past and the future.

For the employee, the past gives him the glory, satisfaction, sense of failures or incompleteness and accomplishments whereas the future imply new horizons, new dreams, new identity and to an extent new anxiety. Looking at the human nature, around 80% of the people would not want to invoke this without fully exhausting their thought process.

This is where the role of middle and top management is crucial and it needs to play its cards craftily. It needs to act before the employee completes his/hers thought process. The organization has to know its own people, the overall trend, competitor’s vision and also retention of right talent for today and future which forms the key to make any organization a stable one. Keeping the vision of organization and ensuring the alignment of the employees with its goals is predominantly required to have the resignation number under control.

The Middle and Top Management has a huge role to play in controlling this volatile phase or situation.

Opportunity – Opportunities are the gateway to growth. Employee or Organization both would be the ultimate beneficiary if this is managed in a well-thought-out manner.

The organization needs to generate more opportunities. The avenues need to be evolved and created and not awaited. Making use of exuberance and experience is the key for bolstering the organization tree, a success. Acting smart and not late is fundamental to growth of any organization. The move to right technology, right domain, the customer needs and do it right the first time is the real Mantra. If this is not supported by the right mix of people , invoking resignation lifecycle is unavoidable. The diversification and initiation as part of the progression of a career is a must for any organization.

With the ever evolving technology and trend to grasp and grab more , the employees are always on a lookout for that ‘X’ Factor and opportunity is vital to make a success out of employee and employer. By providing the right opportunity at right time would add to the sustainability of the organization.

Someone has famously said ‘Love Your Job and Not The Company’ and mind well, today’s generation has taken this meaning to a literal level.

Roadmap – For any employee or an organization, roadmap is the key to future.

Everyone in this competitive world wants to see himself/herself grown and deems a future for oneself and the best way to nurture these inner thoughts is an organization’s ability to align with its employees. Identifying the right talent, continuous communication with the employee and coming out with a roadmap for them as well as for itself is the need of the day for any organisation. The organization which can envisage this today for a better tomorrow is the one which will not be required to go through the talent crunch very often. The ability to judge a talent and resource lies with the management and more proactively it acts , it improves the longevity of the resource. The resource has to have a clarity where he stands today and tomorrow.

The biggest takeaway from any roadmap is assurance of the future to the organization and makes it ready to take up any challenge, sustain the growth. No organization can survive without clarity of its own as well as its employee's roadmap for the future.

Attrition – It’s a number game overall. Lesser is the number, more is the stability.

As someone rightly said, no one can stop anyone from leaving then on the other side of it , the most important part to control this number is to be a proactive organization. If one organization doesn’t understand the need of the employee (and it may not be monetary only), the other ones are ready to grab these loopholes and bridge the gaps. It’s said take in your plate what you want but ensure what you take is what you need, applies for the companies as well. I have seen organizations act in haphazard manner and increasing the headcount without proper data and analysis. Such organizations would always feel the heat of cost , talent , revenues and ultimately losing it big on attrition and most importantly the organizations need to fledge as per the need and not per the trend.

The key is proactive retention of rightful talent, grooming the employee to ensure right skills and be Future Ready.

Relieved and Reliever – It’s always a unique phase , considering the fact that 2 people /parties are involved for completion of handover and takeover without impacting the organization’s integrity.

One, who is relieved, is relieved from all the glories, passion, stress or ownership and the one who is relieving has to re-live the complete role, a sort of getting into someone’s shoes and start afresh. The organization needs to ensure both the parties feel a mutual trust when this inevitable happens. The feeling of relieved should be earnestly felt by the departing one and the new owner needs to be rightfully placed and empowered. The key to right transition is the trust of the involved management in this tedious task and only it can get this seamlessly delivered.

The goodwill built through this difficult phase shall nurture the culture of the organization as well as improve the trend of belongingness towards the organization.

All in All ,though the nitty-gritty or the philosophy of resignation process would always have above phases which would remain crucial and interdependent, the missing of a proactive control would cost a talent , goodwill as well as the strength of any organization .

The above article is published on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/life-cycle-resignation-jayawant-gokhale-pmp-itil/

- Jayawant