Michael Pietrack, Managing Director at Kaye/Bassman, Authored “Leadership Lab: How To Spot When Employees Are About To Walk Away,” Featured in BioSpace
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Michael Pietrack, Managing Director at Kaye/Bassman, Authored “Leadership Lab: How To Spot When Employees Are About To Walk Away,” Featured in BioSpac
Plano, TX | 11/13/2025
Michael Pietrack is a Managing Director at Kaye/Bassman International, an executive search and recruitment firm. Michael is a practice lead for Kaye/Bassman’s pharma and biotech recruiting team and host of “The Pharmaverse Podcast.” The following is an article published in BioSpace:
In this column, Kaye/Bassman’s Michael Pietrack shares a framework that helps leaders identify when their team members are thinking about heading for the exit—and how to address it.
In biopharma, people are every bit as valuable as the science. You can have the most promising pipeline in the industry, but without the right leaders, scientists and field professionals to bring it to life, progress stalls. That’s why turnover hurts so much. Losing a key person at the wrong moment can disrupt the delicate balance of a high-performing team. This article shares how you can spot the signs early enough to do something about it.
Identifying the Signs: The CLAMPS Framework
Most employees don’t leave on a whim. They wrestle with the decision for months. If leaders are paying attention, they can usually spot the signs of restlessness before a resignation letter hits their desk. A helpful way to frame those signals is through the CLAMPS framework. The acronym stands for challenge, location, advancement, money, people and security. Each of these six factors plays into a professional’s decision to stay or go, and each can be proactively addressed by leaders who are serious about retention.
1. Challenge: employees need to be engaged but not overwhelmed
High performers thrive on being stretched, yet they’re also the ones who can do their jobs on autopilot once things get too predictable. When someone who used to light up with enthusiasm suddenly disengages, it may not be laziness. More often, it’s a sign that they’re bored. In biopharma, this can be particularly dangerous because the work is inherently complex, and if you can’t keep your sharpest people mentally engaged, competitors surely will.
The fix is straightforward: Keep them challenged. As an executive recruiter in the biopharma world, I’ve seen that the No. 1 reason candidates want to stay where they are is because they’re in the middle of a project they really care about. If you’re sensing that one of your star performers may be feeling a lack of challenge, find out what ignites their interests, and get them on a special project that stokes their passion.
