They say the strength of a company is the sum of its people, with their knowledge, their innovative ideas, and their commitment. So when someone leaves, the whole ecosystem might be at distress. Fortunately, there is a way to minimize the damage and to help your team further benefit from the knowledge of the departing employee.
It costs about $50,000 in average to replace a single staff member considering all the hidden costs, according to a study carried out by Oxford Economics. Most of the money comes from loss of productivity that follows the leave, as it usually takes 29 weeks for the new guy to get up to speed in the IT & Tech field. The remaining part consists of costs associated with finding a replacement. The analysis included data from five different sectors: retail, legal, accountancy, advertising, and IT and technology.
There is another formula for calculating the impact of an employee leaving. For those on entry-level positions, the amount of money the company loses is between 30 percent and 50 percent of their annual salary. At mid-level, it’s up to 150 percent, while at high-level, the replacement costs are estimated at about 400 percent of the annual salary of the employee.
Most of the costs are hidden. When losing a colleague, his team will carry on the most important tasks, “but other things will fall by the wayside”, according to inc.com. Those that continue their work at the company are often overworked and will at some point consider looking for a new job.
The safety net
Losing a team member also means losing the knowledge he has been using while working on the company’s projects. The shortcuts he mastered remain unknown to the colleagues, and are probably lost forever.
However, there is one thing you can do to reduce the damage, beside treating your subordinates well, and that thing’s called knowledge sharing. Any company can implement a software that facilitates collaboration.
Q&A tools like Quandora can support your organization a lot with facilitating the flow of internal knowledge. And it’s quite easy and fun to use: a team member asks questions when in doubt, and someone from the group provides the answer. The information is stored in a practical manner and becomes easy available in the future. That way, when someone leaves, a reasonable volume of information remains. That’s especially important for ongoing projects.
Welcoming collaboration is a good strategy for both companies and individuals. Learning together can truly open an ocean of possibilities in your career, as everybody benefits from everybody else’s knowledge. So start fostering collaboration and…
Happy Knowledge Sharing!
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