A lot of employees find it extremely hard to confront resigning – even when they know that it is in everyone’s best interest. Prior to resigning or being made redundant most staff send out what I call a “please let me go” message to their employer. These are not the obvious coming in a suit to work after a late start or taking a lot of “personal calls”. An alert employer can pick even subtler signs and make changes well before they explode.

What do these signals look like? They are odd behaviors that seem to erupt for no reason. The most common order of them manifesting is below:

Drop in production
If you are measuring this closely you will see a drop in production and focus on their role. They seem to be doing other things or only the admin / easy parts of their role. You may even see an increase in health complaints as a result of a weak immune system. A sales person will for example stop cold calling or call only returned messages. As the employee moves down through the stages below, their production becomes even worse.

Anger
Take a relationship wherein one person is unhappy and wanting to leave – many times one partner is looking for a fight – a reason to blow up and then give them an excuse to throw their hands in the air and say “This is not working for either of us”. This makes it easier for them to confront leaving. They may even appear bluntly dishonest and use threats.

Covert Hostility
Here, if the anger has not been picked up or ignored, the employee takes on subtly attacking the company. This may appear as malicious gossip, acts of omission, “forgetting”, theft, or work to rule behaviors. The employee is crying out for you to sack them. They may even lie cleverly about their production volume. They appear very flighty and have a low concentration level. Have a look at their operating area, you most likely will find things broken and in need of repair.

Crying / breakdown
A fairly obvious state – the covert hostile person has taken themselves to the next level, now they are the victim not the antagonist. They only hear the bad and can’t relate to anyone that is happy. There is a high degree of shame evident in their actions. Suddenly they seem to become extremely accident prone – so don’t put them near finance lines, machinery or sending of bulk marketing material!

As a manager, our job is to pick the “drop in production” point and prevent a downward spiral festering in our teams.

Communication is the key tool we have. Somewhere the employee has gone into disagreement with their role being their main focus. This is where your skills as a manager to direct the employee back into the fold – or remove them graciously from the team are needed.

Good Luck!