How do small business owners deal with the real world situation when employees suddenly up and quit their posts? It frequently happens with little or no explanation. This can be troublesome to employers, because a great deal of time and expense goes into hiring and training staff. Fortunately, this can be handled through investigative technique and a willingness to communicate in a supportive way with an employee.

In every business organization, no matter the size, it is immensely beneficial to have a designated ethics officer. It is this person’s responsibly to handle communication breakdowns and unethical conduct. When an employee gives notice that they are intending to quit their job, it would be up to the ethics office to investigate why they are quitting and take measures to attempt to resolve any issues surrounding that decision. Often, once the issues are resolved, the employee determines not to quit after all and goes on to contribute a high rate of productivity to the company.

Ethics officers have been trained in the knowledge that:

- People are basically good.

- A staff member will attempt to protect a benefactor (small business owner) from damage caused by unethical behavior.

- A staff member will eventually quit his post if he is the perpetrator of the unethical conduct.

For example, if an employee has been going home every Friday at clock out time with a box full of paper clips, pens and other office sundries that belong to the company with a justification of any sort for doing so, he is a perfect candidate for quitting the company. Because an employee is basically good and ultimately does not wish to hurt his benefactor, he would rather quit the company than continue to steal from it. The ethics division, in gathering data for a case, would take steps to determine what unethical conduct the employee had undertaken. If it was revealed as having happened, then the ethics officer would further investigate to discover reasons for the employee’s conduct in the first place. In handling and resolving the unethical conduct, the ethics officer would have the employee list:

- Details of the act his or her unethical behavior.

- Exact time and location of the act.

- The effect those actions had on other employees, departments and all else involved.

The ethics officer would proceed then to discover any communication breaks that had affected the employee’s state of well being and productivity. The officer would seek to understand if the employee:

- Understood company policy that affected his or her post.

- Had thorough understanding of the requirements of his or her post.

- Had been correctly handed off the responsibility for handling his or her post.

- Knew the company system for communicating with other posts and departments.

In any area where the employee lacked information or understanding, he would promptly be trained and upgraded. Following this basic system of handling ethics has proven to be effective for small business owners in reducing employee attrition rates. As an aside - when an employee requests an unscheduled raise in pay, make your decision based on their current pay rate compared with their productivity. If they don’t meet the productivity requirements for the raise they are requesting, take the time to help them determine how they can increase their productivity to warrant the additional pay.

Meet the Author:
Robbi Gunter is a staff writer for Strong Business Credit, a free educational web resource for small business owners and businesses seeking to obtain business financing and credit cards.