Dealing with Employee Turnover

Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.

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Dear Bev,

It’s been years since we had to hire anyone in our firm. We have operated with 13 people and have run a very efficient business with no employee turnover. We have carefully managed growth and have never wanted to get big and unwieldy.

Reality hit this summer. Our long time director of operations told us she is retiring early. Her husband is facing a number of health issues and she wants to spend time with him. We find ourselves in an odd position – having to hire when we haven’t needed to in the past because no one leaves.

How do we promote this to possible candidates? Do younger people even like the fact that we’re all long-tenured? Would we need a younger person or should we look for a peer (no one here is under 45 and most of us are 50s and 60s). It is terrible to lose this person but daunting as heck to figure out how to replace her.

A.S.

Dear A.S.,