Non-profits walk a fine line between passion and burnout, especially when leadership forgets the value of their most experienced people.

When a misguided manager decided that senior staff were just names on a payroll, those names quickly became resignations.

Read on for the full story.

We’re replaceable and you’re happy to help us leave? Okay.

I used to work for a small, fee-for-service non-profit.

The average number of clients served was/is around 250.

The average caseload is 12 but can range from 10-20 per person (and may exceed 20 depending on circumstance).

Non-management staff hover around 18-20 people.

The company pretty much ran on their senior staff.

New staff aren’t really able to effectively use client authorized hours until several months in, so the org is reliant on senior staff to keep projected income up.

This is relevant later.

Keeping it as understandable as possible, one of the “perks” of being a senior staff member was receiving a personalized, facilitated plan for your goals.

Usually, collaboration was a big part of the job,

Once the plans were done individually, everyone who received one from all regions of the org came together as a group to discuss.

This was meant to be an opportunity to share, support each other, and figure out next steps.

Since our plans were mostly done around our goals at the company, we had an honest conversation about what we need to be successful.

One member of the senior staff found these meetings really helpful.

It wasn’t inappropriate in any way and many of the needs we brought up were already being met; it was honestly just a facilitated discussion around how to keep focused on advancing our career there.

Well, one person from another region with more “weight” didn’t like how the day went, so they complained to their manager (who is also a personal friend).

But some managers didn’t feel the same way.

That manager worked herself up about it, created a new story, and went straight to the assistant director.

The assistant director is a VERY reactionary person and isn’t very well liked; most just avoid or placate her.

Everyone in my region at the group meeting gets an email from AD saying we need to cancel all appointments and be in her office at a specified time the next day.

So they cleared their schedules and attended the meeting.

Remember, we’re senior staff.

That means five of us cancelled our client-based appointments to go into this mystery meeting, losing the company money.

Meeting comes.

We are sat down in front of all of the managers in our region and the AD.

The meeting went just about as poorly as possible.

She launches into us with the following highlights: “How dare you use group time to provide feedback about the organization.”

She’s so ashamed and doesn’t trust us to represent the company, informs us that we wasted $7,000 of the company’s money, and that her toddlers behave better than us.

She continues berating everyone.

She ends this five-minute rant by saying that every one of us is replaceable, and they’d be happy if we left.

We five sit in stunned silence before the meeting is “concluded” and we all walk out.

It turns out, tanking morale was the whole point.

Turns out the AD never spoke to the facilitator, didn’t consult any other attendees from other regions, in fact, didn’t bother getting any additional information at all.

To add insult to injury, my boss (one of the managers in the room) told me the point of that meeting was to “make us feel crappy” when I asked what follow-up was needed from me.

So for this senior staff member, the choice ahead was easy.

I found a job within two weeks and left.

Two other people in that meeting quit within a month. A fourth is halfway out the door.

Others found out about the meeting, and so far four additional staff have left.

All of these departures were going to hurt the company in more ways than one.

All seven of us who quit (so far) had been there three years or more and our departures were no more than two months apart.

Our total caseloads numbered roughly 120 clients, meaning that almost half of the organization’s clients are without staff to support them and there are now five new hires without mentors.

And the new hires couldn’t even come close to picking up the slack.

One of the new hires quit because of this, making 8 people gone in two months. This turnover has never happened before.

And the senior staff left with some very valuable knowledge too the company would definitely miss.

I left behind three years of stellar client relationships and high performance/outcomes and took with me the knowledge on everything from mandatory trainings to the billing protocol.

Yup, that’s right. I developed the billing protocol for the new database, and no one had stepped up to learn it prior.

Sucks to be you, I guess.

Moral of the story: if you tell staff they are replaceable, their answer will be so are you.

Looks like the organization’s own policies came back to haunt them in record time.

What did Reddit think?

It seems many bosses don’t understand what they have until it’s gone!

One big mistakes management often makes is not fully understanding what work your employees do.

This user offers a helpful analogy.

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as making someone eat their words.

When leadership treated their most experienced staff like a replaceable part, they forgot one crucial detail — the machine only works if someone knows how to run it!

A little respect would have cost them nothing, but replacing half the workforce is proving far more expensive.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.