The Toxic Farewell: How Poor Exit Strategies Poison Your Workplace Culture

Most managers completely lose interest in their employees once they decide to leave. This is a huge mistake, and here's an out-of-the-box way to look at taking care of your team after they're no longer your team.

Let's evaluate the current situation: employees know that they are "dead" to you once the manager knows they want to leave. They might even be penalized for considering another job or even fired, and their reputation will definitely be damaged. This causes employees who are looking or considering leaving to definitely not tell their managers. This lack of transparency creates a toxic environment of mistrust and fear.

Objectively, a manager wants to know if there's an issue and fix it, or if there's nothing to be done, get as much lead time as possible to find the next candidate. Ideally, they'd have the old employee train the new one, aka a knowledge transfer process. This might sound delusional; however, there is a very simple way to achieve this: take care of your exiting employees. Help them network, give them referrals, and help them update their resumes.

This approach creates psychological safety, encouraging open communication and trust. It addresses the emotional well-being of departing employees, reducing stress and anxiety during job transitions. By maintaining positive relationships with former employees, you build valuable social capital. These alumni can become brand ambassadors, future clients, or even return as "boomerang" employees.

Let me give you a few examples of how this strategy works in practice:

When Alden asked me to fulfill my promise, I said no problem. When the prospective manager called for a reference check, I told them the following: "I will write you a $5,000 check right now. If Alden doesn't work out, you can cash this check, no questions asked." Alden was hired, and the manager was so impressed by my recommendation that they told him exactly what I said.

When Ms. D. told us she wanted a career change, we helped her rewrite her LinkedIn profile and created LinkedIn outreach for her thought leadership interviews. Although she was trying to break into a new industry, a transition that typically takes over two years, she got her first job in that industry in less than one month and increased her pay by a vast amount.

This approach enhances our organization's reputation in the job market, making it easier to attract top talent. It also fosters a positive exit process, making departing employees more likely to cooperate in thorough knowledge transfer, benefiting the organization long-term. When employees see that leaving isn't "career suicide," they may be more inclined to stay and work through issues, potentially reducing overall turnover.

The positive treatment of departing employees improves morale among remaining staff, as they see how the company values its people even beyond employment. This emotional contagion creates a more positive work environment overall. By helping employees transition successfully, we're contributing to their career resilience, which has broader positive impacts on the workforce and society.

This approach demonstrates ethical leadership, which inspires loyalty and commitment from current employees. It also reduces the risk of legal disputes or negative reviews from former employees. By maintaining positive relationships with former employees across various companies, we're building a valuable industry network that can benefit our organization in numerous ways.

We are incredibly proud of all our team members who move on, and we stay friends with them for life. What this does is create a reputation with our current, past, and future employees. We tell these stories, and our team does too. Even the recruiters know them.

For managers, this approach can lead to personal growth, enhancing empathy and leadership skills that benefit all aspects of their role. It's not that difficult to think out of the box and take the path less traveled, to paraphrase Robert Frost. Don't play by the rules; write your own. By doing so, you create a more humane and effective approach to employee transitions that benefits everyone involved.