The Story
A capable business owner of what we’ll call a mid-sized services firm did something many talk about, and few follow through on. They invested properly in developing their managers: a real programme, over months, with coaching, stretch and honest feedback. It worked. The managers grew visibly. They ran better meetings, had the hard conversations, made calls they’d have escalated a year earlier.
And then, within six months, three of them resigned.
Not because they were unhappy with the development. It was because of it. For the first time they had the confidence to ask what they actually wanted from work, and the answer, for some of them, was somewhere else. The owners were blindsided. They’d done the right thing, and it felt like it had cost them their best people. That’s the moment they called us. Not to fix a grievance, but to make sense of a win that felt like a loss.
What happened here
- Development without a visible path forward poses flight risk. Growth raises expectations; if the business can’t show where growth leads, people find an organisation that can.
- The programme built capability, but the business hadn’t built alignment. No honest conversation about what each person valued and whether the role could offer it.
- There was no rhythm of “stay” conversations. The first time anyone asked these managers what they wanted next was in the exit interview.
Building the foundations for better outcomes
- Pair development with a visible path. Before you grow someone, know what growing into looks like here. More scope, a new role, a project to lead. The foundation you’re building is a reason to stay, and it costs nothing but honesty.
- Have the alignment conversation early. Ask what each person values and whether the role can offer it. Done well, this either deepens commitment or surfaces a mismatch while you can still do something about it, far cheaper than a resignation you didn’t see coming.
- Run “stay” conversations on a rhythm. A short, regular check on what’s working and what they want next keeps you ahead of the exit, and frees managers to raise things before they harden into decisions.
- Accept that some growth walks, and then design for it. Not everyone will stay, and that’s not failure. A business known for developing people attracts more of them; build the pipeline so one departure doesn’t unravel the team.
Where the law sits
There’s no legal trick that keeps a developed employee in place, and trying to build one usually backfires. Heavy restraints of trade are hard to enforce in New Zealand and can sour good relationships. The durable retention tools are the ones above: clarity, alignment and good-faith conversations. Where development changes someone’s role or pay, record it with a written variation to their employment agreement.
What you can do, where the investment is significant, is protect it up front. A training-cost bonding (repayment) agreement, agreed in writing before the training or qualification begins, can ask the employee to repay a share of the cost if they leave within a set period, commonly 12 to 24 months, with the repayment amount decreasing the longer they stay. To be enforceable, it has to be reasonable: a genuine estimate of a real, third-party course, or structured internship with qualification fees (not recruitment or everyday on-the-job training), proportionate to the amount and time you and the employee are investing and the value the training holds for their role, never a penalty. And any deduction from someone’s final pay needs their written agreement under the Wages Protection Act 1983. When done well, a bond lets you back your best people with confidence; when done badly, it’s worse than none, so get the wording right. (General information current as at July 2026.)
If you’re investing in your people and want to make sure that investment stays in your business, the first 30 minutes are always free. It’s far cheaper to build the path before the resignation than to backfill after it — let’s build it right the first time.
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Disclaimer
This content is based on a general scenario we have encountered and provides general advice. For the best support for your specific situation, please contact the team for advice. The first 30 minutes are always free of charge.
