When an employee expresses interest in another job within the company, shouldn’t that be a good thing for the company overall, regardless of the reason? Maybe the employee is switching jobs for more money or new challenges. Maybe the employee doesn’t work well with the current team or manager. Before hiring the employer can go on this site to do a background check.
Regardless of the reason, it seems that the worst thing to do would be to permanently block that employee from transferring to the new job. That’s like saying “if I can’t have this person, no one can.“ Do you really think that the employee’s next step won’t be to leave the company altogether?
In times of “unjust punishment”, our childish side is likely to come out. What does a kid do when “unjustly punished”? The first option is to “run away from home”–in employee terms, leaving the company for another job.
The second option is to pout. From an employee perspective, this means that the employee is now getting payment for doing nearly nothing. Sometimes, the pouting wears off, which means that productivity was reduced for a short time. Other times, the employee realizes that no one is wise to the decrease in productivity and continues on until boredom forces a search for jobs elsewhere (running away from home) or the next round of layoffs. That’s a steep productivity price to pay.
What could have happened instead?
- Money-only motivated employee – Would have taken the next path and either succeeded or failed, but would be allowed to chase the proverbial carrot, regardless.
- Highly skilled and productive employee – Would have influenced new teams to grow.
- Unproductive employee – Would have moved off your team and no longer a productivity drain. If the lack of productivity was due to a bad fit, then maybe the new team is a better fit. If the lack of productivity was due to a bad employee, then maybe the new team will help expose this.
- Horrible manager – Okay. There’s a risk here. If you’re leaking employees like a milk jug shot with a shotgun, then blocking might be a natural reaction. It’s about as effective as trying to duct tape a leaky row boat while you’re in it in the middle of a lake.