Employee resignations are one of the worst things to deal with if you’re a business owner or manager. 

Inconvenient, disruptive, and draining for your team’s morale, when handled incorrectly, a resignation can be a disaster for your team. 

Your staff are one of your most valuable assets so it can be heartbreaking to find out a team member you value wants to leave. 

Depending on your relationship, not only do you lose experience, skills, and knowledge but a colleague you’ve come to respect. The idea of replacing them can be frustrating and start to feel like a mammoth task.

There are an endless array of reasons why an employee may choose to leave, even if you’ve been the perfect manager. Vertical growth, relocation, and of course, money are all possible factors. No matter the reason, nothing can seem to justify what you may initially feel to be abandonment.

Going from that feeling of reeling shock to feeling optimistic about the future without your key employee can be difficult. How long it takes you to get to that feeling depends on how you handle the resignation. 

The trick to handling a resignation

Handling an employee’s resignation can be a tricky thing to get right. 

Especially if it’s come out of the blue or occurs during a crucial time for your business.

Mishandling the situation, losing your temper, or throwing your toys out of the cot will only hurt your business and your relationship with other employees. It’s much better to handle the situation with a sense of professionalism, grace, and tact.

The following tips have been designed to ensure you end your relationships with your employees on the right foot – both for their sake and yours.

1. Keep calm and carry on

Your reaction to an employee’s resignation can define the way their last few days are spent and whether or not it becomes a toxic situation. The last thing you want is to spread negativity and influence your relationship with other employees.

So first and foremost: 

Calm. Down.

Take a breath. 

Relax.

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If you lose your temper and blow your top because the timing is inconvenient or you’re feeling frustrated or caught off guard, your reaction can have major consequences. Not only do you still need your employee to perform in their final but you also, but you also need to maintain a positive and productive work environment. 

Having a go at someone for moving on is no way to do that. 

An employee that feels resentful about your reaction may wind up barely working as they work out their notice period. Not only is that unproductive, it’s toxic for your workplace culture.

Replace whatever feeling of anger on inconvenience you may initially feel with empathy, understanding, and positivity. Not only do you not know the reason for their resignation, but you need to remember that having employees leave is a natural part of any employment cycle. 

Especially in the era of “The Great Resignation”.

1. Make sure you get a resignation letter

It may seem optional, but receiving a formal employee resignation letter is incredibly important. 

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If your employee hasn’t provided one, it may be useful for them to use one of Rezi’s templates to help structure and organize the details they need to include. This ensures a sense of uniformity when it comes to your documentation, filing, and recording information.

This acts as proof that the employee chose to leave the company and was not fired or let go of for any reasons that are the fault of the business. Generally, it should include details like:

• The reason the employee decided to leave
• The length of the notice period
• The date of the employee’s last working day

A resignation letter is vital when it comes to protecting your business from unemployment claims, lawsuits, and general filing for your HR department. 

If your employee is open and honest enough in their letter, it can also provide you with valuable feedback for you to use to grow as a person and business.

1. Communicate resignation with your team

Gossip, rumor, and poor communication are guaranteed to spread negativity. If no one knows what’s actually happened, good workplace culture is impossible.

Communication is an essential business skill for any leader to have and one that should be leveraged whenever an employee has resigned.

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Find a convenient time to gather your team and inform them of the news. Be open, communicative, and if possible, honest about the reason why someone is leaving.

Whether you choose to communicate this through an in-person meeting, group email, or video meeting, the important thing is to ensure rumors don’t spread. You also need to work with your staff when it comes to figuring out short-term work or project solutions.

 Some tips for making the announcement:

• Make sure you’re clear on what you need to say
• Figure out your short-term and long-term adjustment plan and communicate it
• Be honest about why the employee is leaving and be open to feedback
• Be positive, confident and make the loss seem manageable

The sooner you come out with the news the better. 

Whether it’s you or the employee in question who makes the announcement, it’s important that some kind of announcement is made.

1. Create a transition plan

A transition plan is crucial once you’ve found out that an employee is going to be leaving your company. It’s vital that this is put together with the help of the resigning employee.

Essentially, the idea of a transition plan is to compile an accurate list of what needs to be completed before an employee’s exit. 

Weekly projects, daily tasks, clients they deal with, and day-to-day activities that an employee engages in should be part of your plan. This can be a major asset if they also help you create things like walkthroughs, SOP documents and shortcuts, and solutions that you can use to ease the training process.

Having an accurate picture of the duties and loose ends that remain after the employee leaves will help make the process as frictionless as possible. 

This is useful because other staff may have to temporarily take on some of their duties until a replacement can be found. A study by Glassdoor found that it takes up to 23 days to hire a new employee so having your current staff help fill the gap is almost inevitable.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. You can choose to see this as a great opportunity to promote a promising junior staff member for example. 

1. Complete an exit interview

Exit interviews may not be the most comfortable activity in the world, but exit interviews also have immense value if you want your business to grow.

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Whether you choose to do the interview online, in person, or through a survey, there are a host of benefits to be had from interviewing resigning employees. For one, it’s a great way to end things on a good note. It’s also a useful way to identify current issues in the workplace as well as potential solutions for the future.

Think of an exit interview as an opportunity to gain honest, insightful feedback about the way your business is being run. They’re a great way to turn the negative of employee turnover into something positive.

While you may want to tailor your questions to every resignation, the roles involved, and the reasons for resigning, there are a few common questions you may want to ask. 

For example:

• Why have you decided to leave the company?
• What did and didn’t you enjoy about working for the company?
• What changes would you recommend the company implement?
• What was your opinion of management?
• What could your supervisor have done differently?

Think of this as an opportunity to grow and improve the way your business runs. You may have lost this employee, but the feedback you get can help prevent future employee turnover.

1. Wish them well

Employee resignations are a natural part of the business. No matter what you do right, how perfectly you manage your staff, or how many incentives you provide.

People grow and change. They seek new challenges or move to new cities, pursue their education or simply get offered more competitive salaries than you can provide. 

Unless there’s been some major conflict, a resignation is nothing personal. 

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It’s important to remember this, both for your sake and for your former employee. The best way to end your working relationship is by shaking their hand and wishing them well. 

Regardless of their performance, focus, and output during their final days, there’s a lot to be said for ending on a positive note. 

After all, neither of you knows when or if you may need each other in the future.

The rundown

It’s never a good feeling when a valued employee hands in their resignation letter.

It’s inconvenient, disruptive, and has a direct impact on the productivity and morale of the rest of your team. Unfortunately, it’s a perfectly natural part of business and the employee life cycle.

This means there’s something positive to be found in the process as well. 

Not only will you be able to promote junior staff, and educate the rest of your team but you’ll also see how they handle increased pressure and responsibility. The fact that your employee is capable of being scouted or recruited is a great indicator of the strength and quality of your company and its brand.

Handling an employee’s resignation is a great test of character. 

In a very important how you go about handling an employee resignation will prove to be an important indicator of whether or not your business will grow and thrive.

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Ryan Fick is a Cape Town-based, internationally raised, opinionated writer who is passionate about politics, and social justice and a firm believer in the link between “Amandla” and “Awethu”. With a background in Journalism, Travel, and all-around Content Writing, as well as a burgeoning interest in all things SEO. He is a perpetual knowledge seeker who knows enough to know he doesn’t know it all.