I have been with my current company for almost 12 years now. That's already above average in this industry. And even though over these years our retention rate has been quite high there has been many people joining and leaving the company during that time.
Work is not for life. It's understandable that people might need change and new challenges every now and then. They want to see something different. Sometimes they come back after a while. I see that as a good sign that we've got several people back after a while when they find out it wasn't any better elsewhere. Our home market is also relatively small so the chances of coming across ex colleague in some occasion is more than likely. They usually don't change entire industries after all.
Today we bid farewell to a colleague who has been with us for the past three years. We have a tradition to have farewell parties to all the leavers. It's up to them to decide whether they want one or not and what kind of parties they want. We don't want to mourn losing them, but to celebrate the time we worked together and to wish them good luck on their new adventure.