How Do You Actually Fix Something Like This?
You’ve already tried the obvious fixes.
You spent money on the stuff that everyone claims makes a difference: raising salaries, a values workshop, a team-building day and you even sent out an employee engagement survey.
But your people still keep leaving, so when someone like me says I can help you stop the revolving door, I understand the thought that flashes across your mind: “Right. But how?”
You’re tired of vague advice about “culture” or “leadership” that never explains what to do on a normal Tuesday morning when you receive another resignation email and you feel your stomach hit the floor.
What I see again and again in small UK businesses is that stopping people from leaving isn’t about doing just one impressive thing; there's no single fix. Uncovering the handful of real issues that are pushing people out of the door and then fixing those issues properly is what will prevent the problem from repeating.
Let me show you how that works.
Why everything you’ve tried hasn’t worked
Most founders try to stop people leaving by reacting to whatever they hear last.
Someone quits and says they’re “don't feel engaged”, so you try some morale boosters like team-building days.
Someone else leaves because of “work-life balance”, so you offer more flexibility.
Three months later, someone new resigns for "a better offer" and you’re back where you were.
This is what it looks like when you’re constantly jumping from one problem to another without ever understanding what’s actually going on underneath.
You’re responding to whatever people mention on their way out instead of fixing the real issue inside the business. You're basically patching up leaks with tape, instead of sorting the burst pipe that keeps creating them.
Unfortunately, most people won’t tell you the real reason they’re leaving and that's not because they’re hiding anything or being dramatic, but it's because nobody wants to cause tension or make their last few weeks awkward.
What they say: “I’ve had a better offer.”
What they mean: “I’m tired of feeling lost, tired of the constant changes and tired of guessing what you want from me.”
So you end up acting on polite half-truths, which leads you to fix the wrong things.
The real reasons behind why people leave scaleups and small businesses in the UK…
I work with founders of small UK businesses (mainly 10 to 50 people) and the patterns are almost always the same.
People leave because they don’t know what’s expected of them.
Or because priorities change so often they can’t get anything over the line.
Or because they can’t see a future here and feel like they’ve hit a ceiling.
Or because you have one person who drains everyone’s energy and the rest of the team is tired of carrying them.
The details differ, but the core issues and reasons are painfully familiar.
And this is usually the point where a founder sits alone at their desk at 11pm, Googling “why do my employees keep leaving” or “how do I stop people quitting my small business” and wondering whether the problem is them, the team, the market or all three.
What’s actually happening is that you have a small number of specific issues inside the business that are quietly eroding trust, momentum and patience. Once you uncover those issues though, you can fix them properly instead of just treating the level symptoms.
How to actually stop people leaving your small UK business
Here’s the four-stage process I use with every client, whether they’re losing two people a year or ten.
Stage 1: Find out what’s really causing people to leave
Not the polite version. Not the exit interview version. The real story.
This means proper, confidential one-to-one conversations with your current team. Not a survey they can ignore. Not a quick “How’s everything going?” in the corridor or at the end of a 1-1. A real conversation with someone who isn’t you, because most people won’t be fully honest with their boss, especially if part of the problem links back to your habits, decisions or leadership.
These conversations reveal the repeated patterns that no one has said out loud, the unclear expectations, the way work gets stuck, the manager who is technically brilliant but draining to work for, the lack of autonomy and development. The constantly shifting priorities, the promises that never quite happen, the moments where people feel let down but never say so.
One founder I worked with thought the issue was pay; it wasn’t. Their people were frustrated because nobody knew who could decide what and everything slowed down because everyone was afraid of stepping on each others' toes. Their highest performers left first because they couldn’t get anything done.
Another business owner didn’t realise that their team was swamped with work; they kept saying yes to every client request without checking their capacity. People were working weekends just to keep on top of their to-do list and the resentment was building long before anyone resigned.
You can only fix what you understand.
Stage 2: Fix what’s actually broken, not what you assume is broken
Once the real issues are clear, you fix those issues directly.
This is the stage where most founders struggle because you’re brilliant at running the business, developing the product, keeping clients happy. But nobody ever taught you how to set clear expectations with managers, design a simple onboarding experience, or deal with someone who’s great at their job but draining for the rest of the team.
So this stage becomes a mix of making practical changes and giving you the confidence to handle situations you’ve avoided for years.
For the founder who struggled with decision-making chaos, we built a simple, clear explanation of who decides what, when other people need to be involved and when to move forward confidently. It took three weeks and it changed everything.
For the founder dealing with capacity overwhelm, we built a weekly view of workload and upcoming demand so they could see when to say yes, when to say no and when to push back on client requests and deadlines, without burning anyone out. Then we trained their leadership team to have those conversations early instead of late.
These are targeted fixes for the real problems that are causing your people to leave, not huge change programmes and cumbersome processes.
Stage 3: Build the foundations so the problem doesn’t come back
Solving the current problem is one thing but making sure you don’t repeat the same cycle next year is another.
This is where we put the simple, repeatable steps in place that every stable team needs:
How you hire, so you stop bringing in people who aren’t right.
How you onboard, so people feel confident instead of lost.
How you set expectations, so people know what good looks like.
How you give feedback, so people know where they stand.
How you develop people, so your best performers don’t leave because they’re stuck.
How you handle performance issues, so small problems don’t turn into big ones.
Small practical steps that make running a team easier, more nimble and more predictable, they won't make your business “corporate”.
Most founders never consider these steps (let alone build them fully) because they’re too busy, so they rely on gut instinct until it stops working. And once it stops working, people leave and you’re left wondering what you're doing so wrong.
Stage 4: Plan for growth instead of reacting to it
The final piece is looking ahead.
If you want to grow from £3mil to £8mil, you can’t do that with the same structure, skills or capacity you have today. You’ll need clearer roles, stronger managers, different expertise and more predictable ways of working.
Most business owners either leave this to chance or don’t look at it until it’s too late. They hire reactively when things are already broken and painful. That pressure leads to rushed decisions, which leads to bad hires, which leads to more people leaving and the cycle continues.
So we map out what your team needs to look like in the next 3 years; who you need, when you need them, who you can't afford to lose, who can grow into what, who needs support and who probably won’t make the journey.
You get a plan instead of a gamble and stability instead of constant churn.
What this actually takes from you
Let’s be honest about what’s required.
Time: Around sixty to ninety minutes a week for six months. Some weeks more, some less.
Honesty: You’ll hear things that might sting. Your job is not to defend, but to understand.
Action: I can diagnose the problems, build what you need and support through the fixes. You have to want to make the changes.
Openness: You need to be willing to look at your part in the problem. Not with shame or judgement, but with curiosity and as a point of learning.
You don't have to figure any of this out on your own because I help you.
Why this works when nothing else has
Because you’re fixing the real causes that push people out of the door, then putting the foundations in place so it doesn’t happen again.
This approach is especially powerful if you run a small UK tech business or digital team where the market is competitive, and the knowledge leaving your business when someone walks out the door hurts you and your customers.
Doing this work together typically saves my clients over £100k a year in unnecessary churn; it pays for the work many times over.
Most importantly however, they have a plan for the future and a business that stops straining every time someone resigns.
Want to talk about what's going on in your business?
I’m Maritsa Inglessis, The People Keeper!
I help UK founders of small tech and digital businesses with 10 to 50 staff who are stuck in the same cycle of people leaving and not knowing why.
If you’re sitting at around £2-5mil turnover and growth feels impossible because the team won’t stay long enough to make it work, this is exactly what I fix!
Through my Employee Retention Mastery programme, we find out why your people are actually leaving, fix those issues properly, and build a team that stays and helps you grow.
Most clients I work with reduce their employee turnover by 50% within the first year and save over £100k. More importantly, they finally get the stable team they need to grow.
I’m location-agnostic and work remotely with founders throughout the UK (Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Norwich) and beyond.
