In many companies in Albania there is an office called Human Resources. It keeps the contracts, the payroll, the leave and the medical reports. The work is necessary and often done carefully. But this is personnel administration. It records who works in the company. It does not deal with how people grow, why they stay or why they leave.
Meanwhile the most common conversation between owners and managers is the same: there are no people. Emigration is real and the labour market is hard. But this explanation, when used for every departure, closes the question before it starts. Besides the people who leave the country, there are people who leave one company for another in the same town.
Follow one employee’s path
Take the most recent hire and follow it from the start. How was the person found? Often by phone, through a recommendation. Was there a written job description? What happened on the first day: who welcomed them, where did they sit, whom did they ask when stuck? When did they first speak with the boss about how things were going?
In many cases the answers show that nobody had thought about this path. The person learned by watching others, received the salary negotiated on the first day and heard an assessment only when they made a mistake.
An employee who does not know what is expected cannot exceed expectations. They can only avoid mistakes.
Work out what a departure costs
On the balance sheet an employee appears as a cost: salary, insurance, tax. A departure appears nowhere as a line of its own. But the cost is real. The weeks of searching, while someone else carries two jobs. The months the newcomer needs to reach the speed of the one who left. The first mistakes. The knowledge that was written down nowhere and left with the person.
This calculation is best done with your own company’s numbers. Done honestly, it usually shows that keeping a good person costs less than replacing them.
The useful question is not only why people leave. It is what we have done so that they stay.
Six habits before a department
A small company does not need a large department. In small companies, the boss does human resources in every conversation, every review and every pay decision. What it needs is a few lasting habits:
- The job description is written before the hire. What result is expected, how it is measured and who the person reports to.
- The first week has a plan. Who welcomes the newcomer, what they learn on day one and whom they ask when stuck.
- One conversation a month, just the two of you. About what is in their way, what they are learning and what they need from the manager. The Area Manager planet has a 1:1 structure that remembers the last conversation.
- A training budget, even a small one. A book, a course or a day beside the most experienced colleague.
- Pay has an explained logic. People can accept a modest salary. It is harder for them to accept pay they do not understand.
- When someone leaves, they are asked why. Calmly and without defending. The answers are written down and compared with earlier departures.
None of them needs new software. They need time, consistency and one person who checks.
Human resources begins when someone in the company regularly asks an employee, “What do you need to do your job better here?”, and then acts on the answer. Without that, the office with folders remains just an office with folders.