Personally I think spending huge amounts of time on retention _after_ someone resigns indicates huge, possibly org-wide, problems with communication and career

Personally I think spending huge amounts of time on retention _after_ someone resigns indicates huge, possibly org-wide, problems with communication and career development. There are lots of reasons people resign, but a lot of the time it comes back to feeling bored, under appreciated, or that their career has stalled. If you’re actively managing a team, you should be balancing these things, _and it should be obvious_ at least to people who are paying attention. Both developing someone’s career and signaling that you want to help are fundamental in a manager building good relationships with their reports. Or as Rands in Repose points out in his post on “Diving Save” [1]: > Diving Saves are usually a sign of poor leadership. People rarely just up and leave. There are a slew of obvious warning signs I’ve documented elsewhere, but the real first question you have to ask yourself once you get over the shock of an unexpected resignation is: “Did you really not see it coming? Really?” If you routinely don’t see it coming, maybe your reports have a legit gripe about what you’re spending your time on. [1] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-diving-save/ https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-diving-save/