We too often fail to manage job endings well. The consequences not only affect the person leaving, but can also harm staff remaining — and the company itself. A client in my psychotherapy practice, for example, could only recall two retirement parties in his 30-year career in banking. “Everybody else either said ‘f**k you’ on the way out the door, or they got fired.”
Departures are uncomfortable and can evoke painful feelings of loss and even grief. Yet while organisations encourage feelings that boost productivity, such as optimism and enthusiasm, they often ignore those which may appear, wrongly, not to produce anything. They may wonder, ‘What is the point?’ and instead choose to bypass the event.
And some individuals, in turn, shy away from endings for fear of embarrassment or being overwhelmed with emotion.