Is your employee breaking up with you for a new company? They’ve enjoyed working for you, but it’s just not fulfilling anymore. This relationship has become stagnant, and they need to move on. You start looking back at all the good times you’ve shared; the completion and success of that multi-layered high-profile project you collaborated on, the mid-morning check-ins where you discussed forecasting for the next month, and even the annual holiday party where you line-danced together. Where did this go wrong? Hadn’t you been good to them? Hadn’t you paid them a fair wage? Offered a nice culture to work in? Provided health benefits for them and their family?

Maybe the problem is a simple solution geared at employee retention. Many employees want to see career movement and that is not necessarily in the form of upward mobility. This could be achieved with lateral movement by supporting Internal Job Hopping. Sometimes a staff needs new challenges and skill sets. This means encouraging them to move around the departments. Maybe you can’t offer a nice promotion with a satisfying raise this year, but you could offer them some diversity in their day to day. Let the employees know that after a certain amount of time you want them to explore other opportunities in the company, learning new roles and acquiring more training. This can lead to a more flexible internal workforce with more skill sets, which benefits you, as well as avoids the cost of replacing your high impact employees who just jumped ship to a competitor.

Go ahead, fight for your relationship! There’s still good stuff here, and you’re not ready to let such an amazing employee go.

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