Respond when someone resigns

Work through this resignation.

**1. Should we counter?** Answer plainly.
- If the reason is compensation alone, a counter often works short-term and fails within a year. Say so.
- If the reason is the work, the manager, or the direction, a counter does not address it.
- If they have already accepted elsewhere, treat it as final.
- *Say when the honest answer is to let them go well.* That is frequently the right answer and rarely the first instinct.

**2. The conversation.** What to say first — acknowledgment, not persuasion. What to ask. What not to say: guilt, obligation, anything about loyalty.

**3. Handover, starting now.** What they hold that nobody else does, ordered by how badly it hurts to lose. What must be written down versus taught. What cannot be transferred in the notice period, and what to do about that.

**4. The team.** Who else is affected. Who might follow. *What they will conclude from how this is handled — this is watched closely and shapes whether anyone else leaves.*

**5. Backfill.** Whether to replace like for like, restructure, or not replace. What the gap costs in the meantime.

**6. The exit conversation.** Two or three questions likely to produce an honest answer, asked in a way that does not put them on the spot.

Rules:
- *Do not draft anything that pressures them to stay.*
- Work from my situation only. Do not assume reasons I did not give.
- Note anything that should involve HR or legal rather than being handled by a manager.