What is the cost of an employee leaving in the middle of a Project?

We’ve all been mid-way through a project, when everything is being channelled a particular way, the path is known to everyone and an employee, who we consider valuable, tells us that he or she is leaving. Regardless of the reason for leaving, either because another offer has emerged that they consider he/she cannot refuse, either to change company in order to grow professionally, or for personal reasons, etc.

The costs incurred by a company when a worker leaves during a project, when they are already trained, adapted to the team and understand how the company wants things to be done, can be significant. The company has to re-invest time, money and effort in the following aspects:

-Selecting a new person: The process of selecting a new person entails publishing the job offer in different web portals, universities, forums, etc., conducting curricular screening, followed by telephone interviews, personal interviews, technical evaluations, and finally, when the candidate has passed all these phases, reach a financial agreement.

-Hiring process: During this process, a lot of administrative time is allocated for the contract process, the confidentiality clauses, the PIT retention model and training in Occupational Risk Assessment for the position that the contracted person will occupy.

-Training time: Training the new person is a long process that can last a minimum of one year. During this time, the rest of the colleagues who are training the new team member have to dedicate part of their work time to teach him how things work, thus reducing their attention of other productive tasks.

– Loss of productivity: During the time it takes the company to find and train a new person there is a significant loss in productivity. There are expenses that are difficult to quantify but have a great impact. The newly hired person is not as productive as the person they are replacing, and it could take between one to two years to reach a similar level. You also have to take into account any possible mistakes they may make, since they are not familiar with the processes and project tools.

-Impact on the rest of the team: Sometimes, when a team member leaves the company, the rest of the teammates ask themselves the reasons why they made that decision, and may also consider leaving the company. This “snowball effect”, can lead to an increase in employees that show a lack of interest and loss of commitment to the company, which translates into a further loss of productivity.

For all these reasons, it is very important to retain talent within the company. As we have seen, the loss of a valuable member of the team is a problem that goes beyond the planning of the project, it also entails a series of hidden costs for both the company and the project.