A company loses an experienced engineer to a competitor. With this departure, the organization may lose technical knowledge, information about ongoing projects, relationships built with clients over time, and years of investment in preparing that professional.
The desire to limit the loss of employees is easy to understand from a business perspective, given that it represents a significant investment the company made in that person.
However, a few months later, the same company needs to strengthen a team and ends up finding in another organization someone with the right experience to fill that need.
The article suggests that productivity depends on circulating experience among people, creating a cycle in which companies both lose and benefit from this talent flow.
