After the highs seen during the so-called Great Resignation (450,000 in Q2 of 2022), resignation rates in the UK are at more normal levels in 2025 – about 230,000 in the second quarter.
That said, we have just witnessed the highest profile resignation of the year, the departure of the deputy prime minister – one of the main architects of the Employment Rights Bill set to put so much pressure on SMEs, the engine room of the British economy.
Sometimes you may greet a resignation with a sigh of relief, other times it may be a significant blow to your business. In the deputy prime minister’s case, the reluctant acceptance of vacating a position no longer tenable was the sentiment of her boss. Will it have any impact on the passage of the Employment Rights Bill? Time will tell!
Whatever the case, there is a process you should follow to end the employment satisfactorily for you and them.
Some parts of the process will be for legal compliance, whilst others will be for acting in the best interests of your company going forwards, like conducting an orderly handover. As we saw with the prime minister, it is an opportunity to reshape your team, too.
We are going to dive into the fortunes of our fictional company Random Offices again, to see how they stumble at some of the pitfalls. And contrast it with the best practice we would advise to clients who choose our Advice Line service or ask us for ad hoc help.
Walking you through the right and wrong way of managing resignation
Random Offices receives the resignation of one of their junior staff, but a rising star. With 20 (soon to be 19) employees they are a relatively close-knit team, and the disappointment flows all the way up to the managing director. It means disruption, a loss of momentum, and the distraction and risk of recruiting a replacement.
Ticking the compliance boxes
The good news is that they received a formal, written, dated notice of resignation, which is important as it underpins everything that follows. They ask the employee to go straight away, paying them in lieu of notice. However, when calculating the final payments due, they forget to include accrued but untaken holiday pay.
Our advice: It is important to take the emotion out of the situation and, at a minimum, meet legal obligations.
We could have provided Random Offices with a leaver’s checklist. This would have covered meeting the pay to their final working day; notice pay or, if contractually allowed, pay in lieu; and that accrued but untaken holiday entitlement they missed; plus any normal additional pay elements.
We would also remind them to check the employment contract for any other contractual obligation or options for either party. For example, pay in lieu of notice and garden leave must be specified in the contract.
Conducting an exit interview
Thinking they are being proactive, the attention of Random Offices’ management immediately turns to hiring a replacement. It was clear from the resignation letter that the mind of their departing employee could not be changed, so they have moved on. In doing this they do not think to conduct an exit interview. This would have provided a valuable opportunity to find out about their employee’s perceptions of the role and working for the company.
Our advice: We almost always recommend exit interviews. They can yield vital intelligence about the employee experience. You may find that rather than simply going elsewhere for more money, there are other push and pull factors at play – hitherto unknown toxicity in the workplace, stress, or something completely unrelated to you…
If necessary, you can take learnings from the exit interview and use them to modify the role (or more general management practices) for the future, reducing the chance of further employee churn as history repeats itself.
A well-managed exit interview also shows a mutual respect, aiding parting on good terms. It is an opportunity to ensure all company property is returned, including security accesses.
A successful handover period
As well as missing out on the benefits of an exit interview, Random Offices shoot themselves in the foot by not allowing for a good quality handover.
Their new staff member may not have been in place before the notice period was up. But the team members temporarily covering for the departure could have benefitted from an orderly handover if the employee hadn’t been asked to leave immediately.
Instead, some tasks are duplicated, whilst others are missed altogether, resulting in unnecessary pressure on the team, plus a lost business opportunity.
Our advice: Where possible, a thorough handover is in the interests of the business and your remaining employees, who may be having to pick up additional workload in the short to medium term.
How we can help
Resignations can be significant moments, it is best to be prepared and know how to handle them effectively.
Our retained Advice Line service is perhaps the best way to work with us for managing events like resignations well. This is because from the employment contract through to the leaver’s checklist, the whole employment lifecycle may have a bearing on the departure.
To find out more about Advice Line, or for help with an ad hoc resignation, please get in touch.
