Managers cannot control every reason people leave, including compensation. They can shape whether the team’s work, relationships, and standards make people want to stay connected—or even return. Meg Adams, Senior Director of Engineering at The New York Times, argues that the foundations are a team identity larger than its current roster, feedback that considers a person’s longer career, and a respectful response when someone resigns.
Build a team identity that outlasts its roster
A team is more than the list of people on it today. Adams suggests grounding its identity in how people work together: the standards they uphold, the challenges they take on, what they learn from one another, and the memories they create. That gives the team a shared character even as individual members move on.
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Keep performance standards clear and fair
Address performance problems supportively and without unnecessary delay. When an issue persists, colleagues may feel its effects or take on extra work. Clear expectations and timely support help protect both the person who needs help and the team carrying the work.
Make employee preferences count in assignments
Ask people what they want to learn, revisit those preferences, and use the answers when assigning projects or teams. Adams says she has invited people to rank options. The important distinction is whether their input can influence an actual assignment, rather than being collected and ignored.
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Design work that brings people together
Give people opportunities to collaborate, learn from colleagues, and teach what they know. Work organized so that everyone stays in a separate lane offers fewer natural chances to build those connections. Collaboration should be part of how the work is designed, not merely an aspiration.
Create shared memories without prescribing one kind of fun
Novel experiences and small celebrations can help make a team’s time together memorable. They are examples, not a formula: an activity that feels meaningful to one group may not suit another. The aim is to create genuine moments of shared experience, not to require everyone to enjoy the same event.
Give feedback with a longer career in view
Feedback can address both the work someone is doing now and patterns that could limit them later in their career. Adams’s longer time horizon is not a reason to be vague about current performance; it is a reason to raise small, actionable concerns while they are still manageable.
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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Be specific about the behavior or result, explain its present impact, and make the next step clear. Putting off a difficult conversation can make it harder when the issue becomes more consequential. A career-focused conversation should be candid and useful, not a prediction that a person cannot change.
Respond to a resignation as a relationship moment
A resignation creates staffing and transition work, but the first response also signals how the manager regards the person. Adams recommends giving the employee and their news attention before moving to the backfill plan: listen, acknowledge their next step, and show support.
- Be present for the conversation. Let the employee explain their decision and share their news before turning to logistics.
- Recognize the next step. If appropriate, celebrate what they are moving toward rather than treating the departure only as a problem to solve.
- Plan the transition. After the conversation, arrange knowledge transfer, coverage, and backfill as needed.
- Keep the connection open. Adams describes following up after someone has left with a meeting, email, or text. Choose a form of contact that is welcome to the former employee.
What a returning employee can—and cannot—tell you
Adams writes, “A returning employee is a strong culture signal, especially from someone with real alternatives.” A person who chooses to return has experienced the team and compared it with something else. That can prompt useful questions about what made the work and relationships worth coming back to.
But a return is a signal, not a scorecard. Former employees who come back are a selected group: they are people for whom the team worked well enough to return. People who left because they felt excluded or disliked the team may not offer the same feedback. Adams also cautions that “a team people remember fondly is not automatically a team that was good for everyone on it.” Ask what the return story reveals, and seek perspectives beyond returners before drawing conclusions.
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What the advice establishes
Adams’s recommendations draw on her management experience in seasonal retail and engineering teams, including an account of an employee who left, experienced another team, and later asked to return. Her LeadDev article, published September 24, 2026, presents practical advice rather than a controlled study. It reports no survey, sample size, retention rate, or causal estimate; the return story is an example, not proof that any one practice will improve retention.
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