Your Team Survived the Layoff. Now Comes the Worst Part.

How to rebuild trust among those who stayed but aren’t happy

Behnam Norouzi/Unsplash+

The office is too quiet for a weekday. Half your team is gone. You survived the layoff, but something important died that day.

The colleague who always had your back? Gone. The mentor who helped you grow? Her out-of-office message is now permanent. Your team doesn’t feel like one anymore.

Companies expect people who stayed to feel happy and even grateful. After all, they still have a job. But instead of feeling lucky, you feel sad, worried, and betrayed. These mixed feelings point to something worse: guilt.

This is the reality no executive wants to talk about: The people who kept their jobs often wish they hadn’t. I hear this in one-on-ones and when helping teams rebuild trust after layoffs. Leaders feel this way, too.

Research confirms that this guilt affects everyone, not just regular employees. In a Leadership IQ study, 74% of employees who kept their jobs said their productivity dropped significantly. Another study found that cutting just 1% of a workforce led…