Business is about people, and getting the right employees in place is vital for any company’s success. Losing a member of staff to a competitor at a crucial time can spell disaster to a skill-intensive project, while investing time and money into training an employee only to see them up and leave, taking their new-found skills with them, can be a real drain on resources.

The Consequences of Not Knowing

There’s nothing wrong with folks choosing to move from company to company, as part of their career progression. Having said this, not knowing a key employee is looking for another job can have a negative impact on your business in many ways:

• Leaving you short-staffed and resources stretched.
• Putting you at a disadvantage if you lose a skilled employee to a competitor.
• Adding an unexpected financial burden to invest in a recruitment drive.
• Loss of productivity when job searches are conducted during working hours.
• Negative team influence if employees are disgruntled.
• Inability to prevent a key employee quitting and address any solvable issues.
• Wasted resources spent on training and human resource investment.
• Unexpected disruption within a company both practically and psychologically.

Knowing when an employee is looking for another job is about protecting your business interests.”

How Connected Are You to Your Employees?

When you’re busy heading up a company, juggling several hats, it’s easy to lose sense of having your ear to the ground and knowing what’s going on with your employees. Add to this the fact there’s always some separation between levels of hierarchy in a company, and you have a natural corporate disconnect…

The modern trend in many companies is to bridge this gap by encouraging dress-down days, after-work pizza treats and team building activities to promote a sense of togetherness and corporate loyalty. However, when it comes to knowing exactly which employees are considering jumping ship, employers are pretty much in the dark.

What Portends An Employee Bailing?

There are telltale signs an employee is scouting for a new opportunity –

• Changes to schedule, such as utilizing flexi-time in a different way or taking more time off for personal reasons and sick days.

• Turning up to work in smarter attire than usual probably indicates a pre-work interview.

• Consciousnesses of reviews and performance assessments suggests these have timely relevance.

Monitoring Employee PCs Provides Important Insights

When employees are considering leaving their workplace one of the giveaways is a sudden interest in job sites and LinkedIn. Monitoring employees web history and searches for spikes in visits and interest in these destinations is a simple, effective and non-confrontational method for keeping tabs on things.

Bosses need to be mindful that aside from the above obvious targets, nowadays many  job opportunities and communications are conducted through social media sites and messaging apps, so whatever monitoring solution you opt for, be sure it gives you access to that data as well…

Software specifically designed to monitor employee activity, including IM, social media and Web-based email, as well as app usage, Web history and keystrokes, can provide a valuable heads-up on whether any key employees are looking to quit; giving you the opportunity to deal with the issue in the best way possible.

Alerts for Job Sites

An advanced tip is having alerts in place for searches of locally popular job sites. This makes the job of identifying possibly unhappy employees so much easier – Rather than sifting through endless stacks of data, it allows you to focus only on those employees who’s actions are explicit indicators of risk.

Digital Endpoint™ created KnowIT, a Cloud Based Employee Monitoring Software for companies wanting valuable insights into employees’ digital behavior across Mobile Devices, Macs & PCs.

Being forewarned is being forearmed.