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June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Burning Bridges from Both Sides (Part 2)
Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.
In the first part of this series on burning relationship bridges, we discussed how an employee should sever their work connection in a professional manner and leave their employer with a positive impression despite any adversarial reasons that may have prompted the departure.
In this part, we will be discussing how employers who instigate a termination process can make it more human and humane--thereby lessening the effects as well as the hurt and anger that can be created when a staff member is let go.
The Employer Side
The ebb and flow of industry and the rise and fall of business invariably means there are moments when an employer must consider reconfiguring its workforce. Some companies do this is as a natural course (for example, when a project ends, so do the personnel needs), but many strive to maintain a steady base of resources in order to sustain a steady operation and good internal relations.
Depending on the need and flexibility of the corporation and staff, there may be creative options that allow for redeployment of the workforce within the organization or to perform "wingman support" for other project teams until new work becomes available.
However, for the employee that is a non-producer or for some reason doesn't make the grade, a manager must often take a firm yet conciliatory position to begin severance proceedings. If a staff member is …
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