EMPLOYEE RESIGNATION IN AN SME - CHALLENGE, OR OPPORTUNITY? 

An SME client of mine was frustrated at the unexpected resignation of a member of his in-house accounts team. It’s not that he resents the employee’s career ambition, but with a recent upswing in demand for his services, he’d rather focus on ‘revenue realisation’ than on housekeeping. It prompted me to ask though... should he consider their resignation as a challenge, or an opportunity?

Default instinct is to immediately advertise for a replacement, sift applications, interview potential candidates, take up references, then recruit and cross fingers that they quickly become operationally effective.

In an SME with active opportunities to grow higher profit business right now, might it be more reasonable to look at the opportunity to ‘cull’ some less profitable clients? The reduction in earned fees could be offset by the salary of the outgoing employee; more importantly, time recovered from managing ‘tedious’ clients for marginal returns will improve the bandwidth of a business that is already poised to benefit from a market upswing.

...and clearing the decks now to accommodate a ramp up in demand for more profitable services will create a better environment in which to bring in new, potentially different resources further down the line.