Payroll HR Tip of the Week, sponsored by Highflyer Payroll: Employees applying for positions elsewhere

What happens when you find out an employee is planning to leave your company and has been applying for positions elsewhere? Your first instinct is likely to terminate them.

Terminating employment because an employee is looking for work elsewhere isn’t expressly prohibited by law, but we wouldn’t recommend it. You might be surprised by how many of your employees are looking for other opportunities—either actively or passively—while still doing good work for your organization. If you start terminating everyone who is keeping an eye out for the next opportunity, you may find yourself with woefully few employees left. This is also the kind of organizational behavior that makes the watercooler news, hurts morale, and may even make it into an online review of your business. For all of these reasons, we’d suggest a different approach.

Read more for the best way to handle these employees.