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January “I’m done” season is here. Can SMEs stop the resignation dominoes?

ended 05. January 2026

If you’re suddenly getting that end of week meeting request that says “quick chat?”, you’re not imagining it.

January is when people do the post-Christmas audit of their life, their commute, their manager, their rota, their pay, and their sanity… and then they start browsing jobs like it’s a hobby.

Why this matters for small businesses (aka the bit that hurts)

Losing one person is rarely “just one person”. It’s customer impact, knowledge walking out the door, everyone else picking up the slack, and then another person leaving because they’re fed up of picking up the slack. Lovely.

And it is expensive.

Oxford Economics (for Unum) estimated that losing an employee earning £25,000+ costs an average £30,614 across five sectors they looked at (IT/Tech, Accounting, Legal, Media/Advertising and Retail). 

That figure is driven by two big chunks:

  • £25,181 in lost output while the replacement gets up to “optimal productivity”  
  • £5,433 in hiring and onboarding logistics (ads, recruitment help, temp cover, interview time, induction)  

And yes, it varies by sector, from £20,113 (retail) to £39,887 (legal) in that study.  


 

Quick reality check


 


 

If one leaver can cost around £30,614, two leavers in a year is potentially £61,228 of impact before you’ve even counted client disruption and overtime. 


 


 

Over to you (comment questions)

  1. Be honest, if your best person resigned on Monday, would you be shocked… or would you quietly understand why?
  2. What’s the one thing in your business that makes good people sigh (and start job hunting)?
  3. Is pay the real issue for you right now, or is it workload, management, flexibility, or lack of progression?
  4. Have you ever done a “stay interview”, or do you only find out the truth in the exit interview when it’s too late?
  5. If you had £1,000 to spend on retention, where would you put it for the biggest impact?
     

1 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Kate UnderwoodVerified
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
If one in ten workers are planning to quit in January, SMEs are not dealing with a trend, they are dealing with a slow motion ambush. January is when people do the annual life admin: dry January, new gym membership, and apparently a new job.
Here is the truth: resignations rarely come out of nowhere. They come from months of “I’m fine” while someone updates their CV at 10pm.
“January resignations are like glitter. You don’t notice the first bit, then suddenly it’s everywhere and you’re finding it in places you didn’t know existed.”
Small businesses do not need gimmicks. They need basics done well: decent managers, realistic workloads, fair pay conversations, and flexibility where possible. Do stay interviews now, not exit interviews later. Ask what would make them leave and fix one thing, fast and loudly, before you are hiring in a panic.