Warm welcomes and forgotten farewells ……

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By Priya Vasudevan: We all have been new joinees often in our career – and what a lovely phase that is. Glowing introductions, , a buddy, a mentor, organizational collaterals, orchestrated senior leader meetings, assimilation exercises – and the list goes on.

Organizational attention somehow dies down when an exit happens. ‘The CEO had to rush for a meeting’; ‘Manager is in back-to-backs’; ‘Peers on tour’; if one is lucky, team members are the only ones who have time to spare.  The exiting employee writes out a ‘Farewell’ mail – just at the last hour, leaving extended colleagues surprised or shocked. I recently attended an exit ‘cake cutting’, where team members were in a hurry to finish the ceremony in time to catch their regular trains back home. Hardly anybody spoke up about the exiting person and on the slightest encouragement the exiting employee read out a lovingly created poem and write up about his tenure to a restless audience.

What’s is happening? Do organizations tag exits to disloyalty – and hence the related dynamics? Do exiting employees feel diminished when they no longer ‘belong’? Why do organisations miss on the emotional closure of relationships – and the sense of dignity and pride it gives to all employees, including those that remain back?

 

Priya Vasudevan  (the author is an HR Leader, with a keen interest in Organisation Development. She can be reached at her twitter handle @uniquepv)