Don't Leave Me This Way! Handling Resignations Gracefully

Every leader dreads the moment when an awesome employee says, "I've got a new opportunity." Your heart sinks, and you immediately start asking yourself how you and the team will handle all the work when this person is gone. Take some deep breaths, re-center yourself, and focus on two objectives: figuring out of the person can still be retained and if not, creating a transition plan.

To figure out if the person can be saved, start by asking questions and listening. Here are a few key questions to get you started:

• What made you start looking for a new opportunity?
• What about this new opportunity is attractive for you?
• Where are you in the process with the other organization?
• What would make it more attractive for you to stay here?

If you have an opportunity to change some things and save the individual, agree on what those actions are and set a date when you will meet again to confirm that these are in place and that the individual is staying.

If retaining the person is not an option, use the rest of the meeting to start planning the transition - both the communications and the logistics of the transition. During the meeting, create a communication plan that ensures people who are staying find out in an appropriate, timely fashion (definitely before the person leaves!).

Your communication plan needs to include:

• The reason you and the individual will give when announcing the resignation 
• All the individuals or groups who need to know about the departure - think about the person's immediate team, teams with whom s/he works in the company, and people outside the company
• The timing of announcements to people or groups - focus on telling those who will be most impacted first and work your way out from there
• Who will communicate the departure to each person or group on the list - depending on the person's role, this could be you, the person who is leaving, a more senior leader, or your communications team
• How the message will be communicated to each person or group - people who are most impacted and who may have a lot of questions should receive the news in person, either individually or in a meeting, while others may receive an email announcement

You may not be able to complete the communication plan in this initial meeting. If that is the case, ask the person to keep his/her resignation confidential until the plan is complete.

During this meeting, you also need to task the person with creating a draft transition plan that includes:

• List of projects with status and suggested interim owner
• List of meetings and committees s/he attends with details about dates, times and points of contact
• List of key contacts outside your company with contact information
• Approval responsibilities (for leaders)
• Key information about each team member (for leaders)

We all hate to lose a great team member, but in today's world, you want to keep the doors open. Helping the person transition out smoothly when s/he resigns does exactly that.