THE HIDDEN WORK OF REBUILDING TEAMS AFTER LAYOFFS

In the immediate aftermath, there’s often a strange quiet. People are processing what happened, wondering if they’re next, and trying to figure out how to move forward with fewer people and the same (or more) work. Meanwhile, leadership is often focused on the operational aspects: redistributing tasks, updating org charts, communicating the strategy behind the decisions, etc.

But something critical gets overlooked: the emotional and relational work of rebuilding a team that’s been fundamentally changed.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENS AFTER THE DUST SETTLES

The survivors of layoffs carry invisible weight. There’s guilt about keeping their jobs when colleagues didn’t. There’s anxiety about job security. There’s confusion about roles and expectations. And underneath it all, there’s often a fundamental shift in how people relate to their work and each other.

I’m seeing this firsthand with several clients. Teams that look fine on paper but are struggling underneath. Productivity has dropped three months post-layoff, despite the implementation of “cleaner” structures. The reason isn’t mysterious: people are operating in survival mode, not collaboration mode. Trust takes a hit. Communication becomes careful and guarded. Innovation stalls because taking risks feels dangerous.

Image creds Martin Baron

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WORKPLACE DISRUPTION

When teams experience significant disruption, three things typically happen—and I’m watching this play out with multiple clients as we speak:

• Psychological safety erodes. People become more cautious about speaking up, sharing ideas, or admitting mistakes. The implicit message of layoffs (that jobs aren’t secure) makes vulnerability feel risky. Just last week, a team lead told me, “My people used to bring me problems early. Now they only come when things are already broken.”
• Role boundaries blur. With fewer people doing the same amount of work, everyone’s trying to figure out what belongs to whom. This creates both gaps where important work falls through cracks and overlaps where people step on each other’s toes. I’m currently working with one team where three different people thought someone else was handling a particular job. Spoiler: no one was.
• Communication patterns break down. The usual networks that facilitate smooth workflow get disrupted. What remains often feels more formal, more guarded, and less effective.

THE PATH FORWARD ISN’T INEVITABLE

Here’s what I’ve learned from working with teams through these transitions: recovery doesn’t just happen. Time doesn’t cure all. Teams don’t automatically “bounce back” to high performance just because they’ve survived the initial disruption.

Instead, there are specific conversations that need to happen, specific agreements that need to be made, and specific practices that need to be rebuilt. It’s intentional work, and it takes time.

First, people need to name what’s happening. The anxiety, the confusion, the grief, it’s all normal, and it all needs acknowledgment. Teams that pretend everything is fine often stay stuck the longest.

Then, they need to rebuild the basics. Who does what? How do we make decisions? What to focus on (when there is so much going on)? What does good communication look like now? These sound like simple questions, but they’re not simple to answer when you’re operating with a different group of people than you had before, under lots of emotions.

Finally, they need to create new rhythms. High-performing teams have predictable patterns: how they share information, how they handle conflicts, and how they support each other through busy and “messy” periods. After a layoff, these patterns need to be consciously and intentionally rebuilt.

Image creds Raymond Petrik

WHY THIS MATTERS MORE THAN YOU THINK

The teams that do this rebuilding work well don’t just return to their previous level of performance; they often exceed it. I witnessed this firsthand with a team I’ve been working with, where the lead (plus two other members) got let go, one team member became the new lead, and the entire team got moved to a different division. It could have been a disaster. Instead, they used the transition as an opportunity to become more intentional about how they worked together. They created clearer agreements about roles and communication. It wasn’t easy, but by working together, they built a strong team and proved to themselves they could navigate anything.

The teams that skip this work often struggle for months or even years. They operate below their potential, lose good people to turnover, and carry forward dysfunction that could have been addressed early on.

MOVING FORWARD

If your team has been through layoffs, whether recent or in the past, the question isn’t whether you need to do rebuilding work. The question is whether you’ll do it intentionally or let it happen by accident.

The good news is that teams are remarkably resilient when given the right support and structure. With some focused attention, most teams can not only recover but become stronger than they were before the disruption.

If you’re leading a team through this kind of transition and want to talk through what focused rebuilding might look like for your specific situation, let’s chat. Every team’s path forward is different, but the destination (a group that works together with trust, clarity, and shared purpose) is worth the effort.

Focusing on what matters most, let’s strengthen our teams and transform how we work together.

 With love and gratitude,

Miriam

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