Avoid Overloading Your Team After Layoffs

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In the wake of layoffs, your remaining employees are likely feeling guilty, anxious, and emotionally distressed. How should you approach managing your team at this sensitive time—especially when there’s more work to be done? You may be light on resources, but asking even more of your people when they have less to give is a recipe for burnout. Here’s what to do instead. 

  • Choose projects to postpone. Create a comprehensive list of all ongoing initiatives, including what each one solves, creates, or improves. Next, rank them based on value and potential impact. Then identify the lower-value efforts that could be postponed now but easily resumed later—and those whose postponement might be consequential and difficult to reverse. 
  • Align with leadership. The next time your boss requests something from your team, ask whether it requires immediate attention. If it does, ask them to help you prioritize the request in the context of your team’s other work. For example, “The team is also working on these three other initiatives. Are there any that can be dropped or postponed to make room for this one?”
  • Uncover your employees’ hidden talents. To unlock your team’s untapped potential, ask your employees to write down their talents and skills. This will energize them and unlock new opportunities to problem-solve and collaborate. 
  • Simplify. Where can your team reduce communication, streamline processes, and centralize information? Optimizing these procedural elements of work will free up your employees’ time to focus on getting the work done.

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