If you and your managers are doing your job right, you will be having regular "one-on-one's" with your key performers, part of which will cover their general job satisfaction and overall "engagement" with the organization.

Sometimes however, general busy-ness, or simply a lack of understanding of how to have such a conversation, means that managers fail to have such discussions, leading to the type of unpleasant surprise that no-one likes to get.

Note: It's often the very lack of such conversations between a manager and employee that builds (or at least stokes) the very frustration that ultimately causes the key performer to leave - a real case of a "double whammy."

Here's How to Stop the Surprises
Use this simple Employee Retention Risk Analysis ("ERRA") process to help prompt your managers to regularly assess the "retention risk" of key performers, and report back to you regularly - I suggest you get them to complete this at least quarterly.

An important secondary benefit of completing this exercise is that it gives a structured environment for your managers to actually have this conversation with you - you'd be surprised the number of business owners who believe their "open-door" policy means that managers will come in and talk about matters such as retention risk of key employees.