Why Your Former Employees Are the Biggest Testimonial of Your Actual Culture and Employer Brand
Credit: hodayum on X/Formerly Twitter
Instant Credibility with Your Brand
When someone lists your company on their resume, they instantly gain credibility associated with your brand. This shows that you trusted them enough to hire them, showcasing your confidence in their skills and experience. But how they left—whether they chose to or were let go—affects how they talk about their experience with you.
Voluntary vs. Involuntary Departure
Voluntary Departure: When employees leave on their own terms, it could be for various reasons like exploring new opportunities, relocating, or personal growth. If this process is handled with respect and transparency, these former employees can become great brand ambassadors, sharing positive stories and even referring future talent your way.
Involuntary Departure: On the flip side, when employees are let go, whether for cause or through reductions in force (RIFs), it gets trickier. In my world, it is mandatory to handle these situations with sensitivity and fairness. People need to understand why the decision was made. Even in tough situations, keeping things professional can help reduce any negative feelings or filing with the EEOC for wrongful termination.
The Impact of Free Speech
Former employees have the freedom to share their stories, good or bad. In today’s digital world, platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Facebook… Instagram - even TikTok give employees the loudspeaker to voice their opinions to people that TRUST THEM. Their followers, their family, their friends. While you can't control what they say, you can influence their story by treating them fairly and respectfully, no matter how they exit.
Why This Matters:
Reputation Management: What former employees say about your company can greatly affect your brand's reputation. A respectful and fair exit process often leads to positive feedback, while negative experiences, that are honestly shared by the departing employee can quickly spread and harm your employer brand.
HR and Marketing Alignment: It’s crucial for HR and Marketing to work closely together. For example, if Marketing is celebrating initiatives like Black History Month or Pride, and your company has a “paid holiday” calendar, but HR hasn’t proposed reassessing the days “celebrated” (read paid) or proposed ADDING Juneteenth, your employees are smart enough to read between the lines: it sends mixed messages. You can find a copy of holidays federal worker will celebrate in 2025 here. This makes your marketing strategy look like a PR stunt rather than something you genuinely believe in. When there's a disconnect, employees notice, and it feels disingenuous. If they feel misled, they might leave, and when they do, they have all the more reason to call out the inconsistency - because it’s an honest experience they witnessed. You've got to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Future Hiring: Many times (after applying), potential employees do their research after throwing their name in the hat. They read reviews and seek feedback from former employees. Positive experiences can keep them interested, attracting top talent. While negative ones might scare them off, and waste your time - because they’ll remove themselves from the process or worse make it to the end, meet managers/team members/get an offer letter and decline. If former employees feel misled or unsupported, they may speak out and highlight the gaps between your public image and internal practices. This can hurt your reputation and make it harder to attract and retain the talent you want. Don’t believe me? Here’s a blog post from Indeed on how to decline a job offer, If resources like this exist - you know people are googling it/using ChatGPT for help. And it sucks wasting your time, getting excited for a candidate and finding out you (employer) are just not what they’re looking for.
Don't Forget: The Impact on Those Who Stay
How you treat employees on their way out will be remembered by those still on the team. Leaders lose credibility and fuel turnover when they mishandle these situations.
Here are a few things to avoid:
Icing Employees as Soon as They Give Notice:
No one likes a pout. You do this, you are now a pouting leader. Examples of a pout: walking by someone in the hallway and not making eye contact, not inviting someone to the team lunch, removing them from team meetings instead of planning overlap/departure tasks. Being a pout is a missed opportunity to lead through change, being a pout is acting like someone blew out the candles on your birthday cake.
Not Communicating a Team Member's Departure Until the Last Day:
Don’t you love a bounce back email when you need something? Keeping the team in the dark until the very last minute about someone's departure is not just poor communication; it's a surefire way to create anxiety among the remaining staff: Did they leave on their own accord? Were they fired? Was it a layoff today … am I next? Wow they hated this place so much they just walked out… curiosity will kill the cat on this one, instead: include communication in your offboarding SOP.
Failing to Communicate Changes in Duties or Client Contacts:
You know what they say about assumptions…when you don’t make a plan and randomly wait for people to pick up the slack, that’s a great way to tell employees you lack direction as a leader and that “work-life” balance you talked about - ooof. Decide what are mandatory tasks, and what can wait for further resources - or even, decide what you no longer want to do! You can change! If mandatory tasks can’t be completed by others, outsource. And if your employee is doing the company a solid - pay them for it. Failing to compensate stretch assignments will get around, and again - talking about compensation amongst employees is 100% legal. Trust me, everyone will think you took advantage of someone’s loyalty and generosity.
Getting Mad or Making Passive Comments When Coworkers Express Sadness:
Dancing on graves is a party of one. If people are sad that a coworker is leaving, let them be sad. Don’t discredit the departing employees contributions saying things like “we’ll be better off without them” or “this is a great opportunity for you to take on new tasks.” Don't make passive-aggressive remarks or get visibly upset of the departing individuals choice to no longer give you their time. It's natural for people to be friends, and it's healthy to acknowledge that. Your team can be sad.
Being Uncomfortable at "Going Away" Parties:
Leaders who are visibly or vocally uncomfortable during farewell parties seem cold and robotic. Remember, this employee contributed to where your company is today. They did the work, and they're not leaving for cause—they're leaving because they no longer want to work for you. Celebrate their contributions, thank them for their time, and be professional. If you show discomfort, expect it to be noted and possibly shared publicly, tarnishing your personal brand due to poor leadership behavior…and your business brand because you represent them.
A note to business owners:
If you have someone in a leadership role who can't handle these situations gracefully, it's time to make a decision.
Is that what a leader looks like to you? To your brand? No?
Then maybe it's time to think about your people strategy, and how your human capital are assets to fuel (or not) your business ambitions.
Please learn from this blog and don’t let me say “I told you so".” Leader behavior in the offboarding process/departure process (whatever you want to call it) will be remembered by the team that stays behind, your current team, and now you (leader) have a choice….rebuild your reputation or double down. In the future, do you want notice? Because the thing is - in at will states, many cases employees don’t have to give it to you. And NOT giving notice is trending on social media too.