Why the most important signals in your company disappear into your managers' heads, and what it costs you.
The employee you could have kept
It's Tuesday morning, 9:30. Your HR manager is standing in the doorway holding an envelope. "Sarah just handed in her resignation."
You're surprised. Stunned, even. Sarah is one of your best consultants. Clients ask for her by name. Colleagues love working with her. She seemed like a perfect fit.
"Didn't we know she was unhappy?"
The answer, as you'll discover over the next few days, is: actually, yes. Or at least, one person knew. Her manager. But that information never ended up anywhere you -or HR- could find it.
What really happened
Sarah had raised it three times. In three different 1:1 conversations with her manager, spread across four months. She said things like:
"I want more responsibility. I'm doing the same work I did two years ago."
"I feel undervalued. I see colleagues getting promoted who joined after me."
"I'm seriously thinking about what I want. Maybe it's time for a new environment."
Her manager listened. He nodded. He said he'd discuss it with HR. And then… nothing happened.
Not because he's a bad manager. He meant it. But between the 1:1 and his next meeting, three other things were already pulling for his attention. The note - if there even was one - disappeared into a notebook. The intention to call HR disappeared into the daily noise.
And so Sarah's signals vanished into a black hole, one by one.
The bill
Let's be honest about what this costs you:
Recruiting replacement (agency fee or internal hours | €8.000-€15.000 |
Productivity loss during vacancy (3 months) | €15.000-€25.000 |
Onboarding new hire (6 months at half productivity) | €10.000-€20.000 |
Client relationships under pressure | Unquantifiable |
Impact on team morale ('If Sarah leaves, what does that say?' | Unquantifiable |
Total: 35.000-60.000 per preventable departure
And that's just what shows up on the books. The real cost lives in what you can't measure: the colleagues wondering "what does it mean that Sarah left?", the clients rebuilding their relationships with someone new, the trust that slowly erodes.
The problem isn't the conversations
Here's the uncomfortable part: the conversations happened. The feedback was there. The warning signs were there.
The problem is that they all stayed stuck in one person's head. There was no place where that information came together. No way for HR to see that one of their best employees had flagged something three times. No system that prompted follow-up on commitments that were never made.
Sarah's manager didn't have bad conversations. He had unfindable ones.
The question that matters
Think about your own company for a moment. If I asked your HR manager today:
"Which employees have signalled in the last six months that they're unhappy?"
Would she know the answer?
Not because she's failing at her job. But because that information doesn't live anywhere findable. It lives in the calendars, inboxes, and notebooks of five, ten, fifteen different managers - if it lives anywhere at all.
That's the problem. Not that your managers aren't having conversations. It's that those conversations vanish the moment they end.
And every time a Sarah leaves and everyone says "we had no idea" - that's proof your system is missing.
—————————————————————————
Book a 30-minute demo and see how to bring all feedback, 1:1s and action items into one place.
Previous post:
