How to announce employee departures to your team

How to announce employee departures

Now we know you should announce departures, but the question is how? It can be a tricky and sensitive topic to navigate. Here are some tips to help:

Understand the root of the problem 

If one person quits, there’s not necessarily a problem. But if it’s happening consistently, it may require some investigation. Why are people leaving? Is there a certain area of the business that’s seeing more turnover? 

The old saying goes: “people don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad managers.”

The answer to why people are quitting is almost always bad management. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the manager themself is bad — always assume positive intent. They’re probably exhausted and don’t have the proper tools to create a safe environment for their team. How can you better support and equip your managers?

If you’re doing consistent one-on-ones and skip-level meetings, you’ll already have a sense of what’s going wrong before people start leaving — which is the best time to address the situation. If you’re not already aware of the issues, an offboarding meeting is also an opportunity to find out what’s been going on and get some honest feedback so you can course-correct. 

Have the right tools in place 

What are your company’s pre-existing communication pillars? Resignations aside, how do you share news with your employees? 

At Spinach AI we rely heavily on two recurring touchpoints with our whole team: a weekly 15-minute townhall and a bi-weekly demo day. These are also opportunities to share company news like resignations. 

Townhall

Our townhall is mostly for information sharing. In addition to reviewing our goals and metrics, it’s when we communicate any news and changes with the team. 

If people are resigning from the company, we share that with the team at Townhall. 

Since this meeting happens weekly, it gives us the opportunity to share almost immediately, rather than waiting two weeks until demo day. 

Demo day

Demo day is when we review what’s been done over the last sprint (2 weeks). It’s also where we’d celebrate accomplishments and milestones. When someone leaves the company, we take some time during demo day to share kind words about the team member and bid them farewell. Not only is this nice for the employee that’s leaving, but it also demonstrates to the rest of your team that there aren’t any hard feelings. 

Demo day’s also a great opportunity to announce if new people have been hired.

While I do recommend these touchpoints, I appreciate not everyone has them. Use what you do have. Maybe email is the common mode of communication. That’s okay. But, whatever it is, make sure you give your employees the space and opportunity to ask questions in real-time and get any clarifications they need. Make it a conversation. 

Don’t wait too long 

Once you know people are resigning, don’t sit on it. Like I said, bad news travels fast. The longer you wait to announce, the more time there is for people to make their own assumptions. Get ahead of it by ripping off the band-aid.

Present the facts 

People see right through sugar coating — list the facts. Eg: These people are leaving, are they being replaced? If you’re not replacing them, why not? If you’re changing the role, why?

People crave solid, logical information. Don’t make them fill in the blanks! 

Share a plan for moving forward 

While you don’t need to sugar coat an exodus, it is important to share how you’ll operate moving forward. It’s a time of uncertainty and people want to know that you have a plan for the future. 

This will also allow you to put a positive spin on things. For example, if 2 people are leaving the company, that could also mean that there are 2 open roles, or an opportunity to promote from within. 

If you’re not sure yet, let your team know that you’ll be presenting a plan of action in the coming weeks. You don’t need to know everything when you announce, but make sure your team knows that you’re thinking about it and will keep them in the loop.