The team that stays: protecting trust and performance after a layoff

People who keep their jobs often feel several things at once: grief for colleagues, guilt that they were spared, fear that they will be next, and frustration at the work left behind. These are normal reactions, and they show up in the results.

1. People leave. In a study of about 200 companies, researchers Charlie Trevor and Anthony Nyberg found that layoffs can set off a later wave of resignations, sometimes larger than the cuts themselves. Cutting just 1% of the workforce was followed by a 31% rise in voluntary turnover.
2. Productivity dips. Workplace analytics firm ActivTrak studied seven of its clients that made layoffs between 2022 and 2024. Productive time fell by nearly an hour a day per remaining employee. The three it could follow for six months all recovered within that time, and its chief customer officer noted that so much of the response to a layoff is cultural.
3. Mistakes rise without training. In a 2025 Kahoot! survey of 1,064 U.S. workers who had been through layoffs, 65% said a lack of training afterward led to costly mistakes or left them unprepared.
4. Fairness changes the result. In Trevor's research, quits rose by 63% at companies with weak procedural fairness, such as no confidential way to raise concerns or appeal decisions. Where those practices were strong, the rise was held to 15%.

None of this is inevitable. It is shaped by what leaders do next.

Once everyone affected has been told, bring the team together, in person or on video, including anyone remote or in another time zone. Don't let them piece it together from empty desks and rumors. Cover five things:

1. What happened. Who is leaving, said with respect and, where possible, in the way each person agreed to. Keep individual reasons private.
2. Why. The same reason given everywhere else, in plain words.
3. How their colleagues are being supported. This matters more than most leaders expect. People judge the organization by how it treats the people who leave.
4. What happens next. What changes for this team, and when they will know more.
5. Whether more cuts are planned. Answer honestly. If you can't share something yet, say so, and say when you expect to know more. Only promise there will be no more cuts if you are certain.

Then leave real time for questions, and accept that some people may need the rest of the day. Grief, even for a workplace, is not a productivity problem to solve by tomorrow.

1. Meet one-on-one. Each person should have a private conversation with their manager within the first week. Ask how they are doing, and listen.
2. Redesign the work, don't just redistribute it. Decide what the team will stop doing. Involve people in how the remaining work is divided, so the load feels fair.
3. Train for what is new. New responsibilities, new tools, and any AI or automation now in their work. Untrained people make costly mistakes and lose confidence. If AI is part of the reason for the layoff, see our guide on communicating a layoff when AI is the reason.
4. Make support easy to use. Remind people about the employee assistance program or other mental health support, and make it normal to use it.
5. Talk to the people you most need to keep. Tell them directly that they matter and what their future looks like. Retention pay can help, but it is not a substitute for that conversation. Then make sure everyone else hears that they are valued, too.
6. Let them help. Many people want to help the colleagues who left, with a LinkedIn recommendation, an introduction or a job lead. Let them, and make it easy. Staying connected is part of how people work through what happened.
7. Keep communicating. Share progress, recognize the extra effort, and keep answering questions after the news is old.

Managers often delivered the news, lost team members, and are now expected to lift the morale of everyone who remains, while processing it all themselves. Give them answers before their team asks the questions, a clear plan for the work, and support of their own, such as a coach, the employee assistance program or an HR partner they can call. A supported manager steadies a team. An exhausted one cannot.

That preparation starts before the day. See our guide on how to prepare for a layoff conversation.

• Acting as if nothing happened, or asking for "business as usual" the next morning.
• Celebrating cost savings in front of the people who lost colleagues.
• Telling people they should be grateful they still have a job.
• Vague answers to direct questions.
• Promising there will be no more cuts when that isn't certain.
• Adding work without changing priorities or deadlines.
• Never mentioning the colleagues who left, as if they had disappeared.