Losing team members is disruptive. It requires you to reallocate their responsibilities, reestablish a workflow among your remaining team, and re-boost the morale you’ve worked hard to build so that other team members don’t follow suit. As a people leader, it’s your responsibility to model for your team that it’s possible to experience difficult things and still move forward — together.

• Acknowledge the departures. Be sure to speak positively about the employee who’s leaving, particularly if they were well-liked by the team. Talk about the challenges you expect to face and the ways the team dynamic may shift in their absence. You want your direct reports to feel reassured, and your honesty and clarity on next steps will show them that you’re prepared to thoughtfully lead them through this change.
• Affirm what isn’t changing. Make your team feel more secure by reminding them what won’t be changing — your collective strengths and shared values. By referencing both strengths and values, you’re reassuring your team that while there will be change, the foundation of what they do and the purpose that drives their work will remain consistent.
• Reassess work priorities. You may feel tempted to quickly re-assign the departing employee’s tasks for fear of missing deadlines. But doing so may cause more harm than good. Take some time to review the overall work priorities of your team. Determine what parts of their work fit into the big picture — and which don’t. There may be a few things you can discontinue or drop temporarily to save your other team members from burnout.
• Boost connection. You can reinforce a sense of connection among your team by focusing on creating community. Some ways to do this include recognizing team milestones, and encouraging connecting beyond work projects, such as planning team gatherings, creating team rituals, and bringing people together through shared learning or volunteering in the community.