Signs Employees Are About to Quit

Are some of your employees about to hand in their notice? Timothy M. Gardner, management professor at Utah State, and Peter W. Horn, management professor at Arizona State, identified numerous “pre-quitting behaviors“ that are often tip-offs that a resignation could be in the offing in the next 12 months.

​Just like poker players exhibit various “tells” that reflect the strength of their hands, workplace “tells” can signal future turnover.  Through detailed questionnaires administered to managers, the authors distilled the most common pre-quitting behaviors. 

These include:

• A decrease in productivity (often doing the minimum amount)
• Acting less like a team player
• Being less willing to commit to long term goals and missions
• Exhibiting less focus and effort
• Expressing more dissatisfaction than usual with their job and supervisor
• Leaving early more frequently than usual
• Less interaction with customers

“Typically,” say the authors, “organizations handle a turnover problem with large scale interventions to improve departmental or firm-level commitment, job satisfaction, and job engagement. These strategies may work, but they take time to design and implement. Thinking in terms of the turnover risk of specific employees allows you to invest your time and resources in those employees who create the most value and are actually at risk of leaving.” One technique is to use what are called “stay interviews.”  Instead of conducting only exit interviews to learn what caused good employees to quit, hold regular one-on-one interviews with current high-performing employees to learn what keeps them and what could be changed to keep them from straying.

Are any of your employees exhibiting signs of quitting, and what action might you take to get them to reconsider? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. We would love to get your feedback and hear about your experiences!

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