KEYNOTE SPEAKER · AUTHOR · HR INSIDER
What Employees Need to Stay (and What HR Can Fix Fast)
Every leader has said it after a resignation: "I had no idea." Teri Chilcoat spent 15 years inside HR hearing that exact phrase, and she knows the truth behind it. Employees rarely leave without warning. Leaders simply are not trained to see the warning signs.
This keynote changes that.
The Big Idea
The resignation is the last step, not the first.
Employees don't wake up one morning and decide to quit. That decision forms months earlier, in quiet moments leaders never see: unaddressed frustrations, unheard voices, unseen effort. By the time the notice hits your desk, the exit interview is just a formality.
Teri walks your audience backward through the resignation to the moment it actually began, and teaches them to catch it there next time.
What the Audience Experiences from Teri’s keynote
The Resignation Timeline. The five phases every departing employee moves through: Doubt, Emotional Withdrawal, Mental Exit, Job Search, and Resignation. Leaders only see the last one. Teri makes the first four visible.
The Four Signals of Disconnection. Long before anyone updates a resume, disconnection shows up in four readable signals: Energy fades, Voice goes quiet, Meaning feels lost, and Ownership disappears. Once leaders learn these signals, they cannot unsee them.
A guided look back. Teri walks the room through a resignation they didn't see coming and lets them find the signals that were there all along. Not to create guilt, but to create awareness.
Breaking the cycle. The shift from "why is this employee disengaged?" to "what might I be missing?" That one question is where retention begins, and it costs nothing.
What HR can fix fast. Practical, same-week actions for HR professionals and people leaders, no new software, no new policy, no committee required.
Disengagement is expensive.
Disengaged employees cost US organizations $2 trillion in lost productivity. Only 28% of employees agree their opinions matter at work, and less than half know what's expected of them. (Gallup)
Meanwhile, teams with engaged employees see 23% higher profitability, 18% higher productivity, and 21% less turnover. (Gallup)
The difference between those two numbers is leadership attention.
“Retention doesn't begin when someone is about to leave. It begins in the moments people are deciding whether they still feel seen, valued, and connected.”
Teri Chilcoat
HR associations and SHRM chapters · Leadership and management summits · Annual company meetings · Executive retreats
Every audience leaves with the same thing: the ability to spot a resignation forming while there is still time to change the ending.