Last week, in the Leading Well After Layoffs Challenge, we covered what happens after the layoff announcement – when the people still on your team are looking for clarity, some sense of stability, and a workload they can sustain.
The series moves through layoff recovery in order: what to say first, how to give people room to process, how to rebuild trust, how to reset the work, and finally how to help people reengage.
You can read it from Day 1 straight through, or start with the part your team needs most right now.
What to Say to Your Team After Layoffs
That first team meeting after a layoff is one of the hardest conversations a manager ever has to lead. Day 1 helps you prepare for it – what to say, how to handle the questions you can’t answer, and the one promise you shouldn’t make, even when someone asks you directly.
How to Help Layoff Survivors Adjust to the New Normal Using Personality Theory
The people who keep their jobs after a layoff often go through something called workplace survivor syndrome. Day 2 looks at the feelings that tend to come up, and how to support each person on your team based on their personality traits.
How to Rebuild Trust After a Layoff Without Making Promises You Can’t Keep
After a layoff, your team may not take your word the way they used to. Day 3 explains why comforting words don’t help much right now – and why making small promises and keeping them, again and again, is what actually rebuilds trust.
How to Run a Post-Layoff Retrospective to Reset Work Before Redistributing It
Your team is smaller now, but the workload probably isn’t. Day 4 shows you how to run a workload retrospective – a meeting where you decide together what to stop doing, what to keep, and what to take to your boss – before handing out anyone’s old tasks.
How to Improve Team Morale After Layoffs (Without Forcing Positivity)
When you’re ready to help your team get their energy back, skip the pizza party. Day 5 covers what actually helps people reengage, what recovery looks like for people with different personality traits, and one simple question worth asking everyone on your team.
That’s a wrap on the Leading Well After Layoffs Challenge
Next, we’re staying with layoffs but looking at them through a personality lens: four deep dives into how Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels, and Explorers each experience the aftermath differently – and what each group needs from you to come through it.
Stay tuned!