If You Don't Talk About Careers, Don't Be Surprised When People Leave

Your best people don't usually leave loudly. They leave quietly, gradually, and long before that resignation hits your inbox.

In this first episode of our new series, we're getting back to basics: why organisations lose talent, what's really happening beneath those 'surprise' resignations, and why the solutions most companies are trying might not be working.

What we cover:

We start by looking at what's actually going on when someone hands in their notice. Spoiler: it's rarely about the money or the title. Most of the time, people leave because they don't know where they could go next, they don't know what's reasonable to ask for, and crucially – they don't know where to have that conversation inside your organisation. So they have it outside instead.

We talk through the warning signs you might be missing: the capable employee who's gradually withdrawing from meetings, the high performer who's still hitting KPIs but has lost their spark, the manager who assumes silence means satisfaction. These patterns show up long before the resignation email arrives, but in busy organisations without a methodology for staying close to people, they're easy to miss.

Then there's the cost. And we're not just talking about recruitment fees and lost productivity. We're talking about eroded team morale, vanished institutional knowledge, the investment you've made in development programmes walking out the door, and sometimes even your clients following them. For senior roles, we're looking at costs that can reach 150-200% of salary when you factor in everything from recruitment to the time it takes for someone new to get fully effective.

We look at what most organisations are already doing – performance reviews, engagement surveys, exit interviews, development programmes, internal job boards – and why these things, whilst valuable, aren't solving the retention problem. The real issue? Most of these initiatives happen at the wrong time, or they're disconnected from meaningful conversation, or they're measuring engagement without addressing the career clarity people actually need.

Which brings us to the solution: proper career conversations. Not the vague "where do you see yourself in five years" variety, but structured, regular dialogue that helps people understand their strengths, map their options, and see a future within your organisation. We talk about why manager capability is the real leverage point here – because when managers can facilitate career conversations well, retention improves, internal mobility increases, and people feel seen and valued.

The thing is, this isn't actually that complicated. It doesn't require massive budget or restructuring. What it needs is commitment to making career development a regular part of how your organisation operates, not something that happens once a year in a performance review or only when someone's already halfway out the door.

We finish by talking about what psychological safety looks like in practice when it comes to career conversations, why waiting for people to ask is a risky strategy, and how organisations can start building this into their people strategy right now.

If you're in HR, talent management, or senior leadership, and you're watching good people leave whilst wondering what more you could have done – this episode is for you. Because retention strategy starts with one surprisingly simple thing: a proper career conversation.

Useful links:

Download our Career Conversations Guide: https://www.thecareerequation.com/career-conversations-guide

Book an intro call with us: https://www.thecareerequation.com/book-intro-call

Connect with Erica on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ericasosna

Connect with Zoe on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/zoeschofieldcoach