💥 The Real Cost of Staff Transitions in Place-Based Work (And How to Soften the Blow)

Staff transitions don’t just impact the org chart. When you’re leading place-based work, they can derail momentum, disrupt partnerships, and shake trust in the entire initiative.

At a recent workshop I led with dozens of backbone and systems leaders, we started with this question:

👉 “What impact does a staff departure—or turnover in your broader place-based movement—have on your work?”

Here’s what real leaders shared:

🗣️ “Loss of relationships and momentum.”

🗣️ “Uncertainty and concern for the work moving forward.”

🗣️ “Work becomes rebuilding relationships instead of progressing.”

🗣️ “Team morale drops. More meetings. Less impact.”

🗣️ “We’re stuck planning and never move to action.”

This wasn’t just one or two people.

Every single person in the room named disruption. Disconnection. Delay.

🔍 Why This Hits Hard in Place-Based Work

Place-based work is deeply relational, trust-based, and builds over time.

When one staff member leaves—especially someone in a backbone or convening role—you don’t just lose the hours in the day they were working. You risk losing:

• Trust built with community members and partners that likely took years to build

• Coordination across sectors–they were often the “glue” of the work

• Institutional knowledge–this person likely saw the community landscape from a very unique vantage point

• Strategic momentum–collective impact work builds over time
  

And here’s the kicker: when a staff member leaves, many leaders absorb that fallout themselves (particularly in a small organization). They take on extra work, push harder, and burn out—faster than before. 

Or, they pause that collaborative work while they hire. Often, that pause becomes indefinite, and then the newly hired staff member is pressured to start a network back up immediately after they’re hired. This leads to a few missed opportunities to rethink or recalibrate the work.

I often compare place-based work to a game of Chutes and Ladders (actually based on an ancient Indian game called Snakes and Ladders, which was stolen and reappropriated during British colonization of India). You take linear steps in the work based on the luck of the die, progressing square by square, line by line. If you get an infusion of funding or a policy win in your place-based work, it’s like landing on a ladder and advancing more quickly towards the finish line. If you lose a key staff member or have turnover in your greater movement (such as your County Executive or K-12 Superintendent), it’s like landing on a chute–you slide back to where you started, feeling crushed about the momentum you’ve lost. 🎵Cue the Nintendo game-over sound effect. 🎵

But it’s not game over. Yes, in the moment, you may feel like you’ve lost momentum and you’re starting over with a particular body of work. 

The idea of Place-Based Resiliency (future post coming soon!) posits that there are strategies you can use now to lessen the length of the chute, and soften the landing, for when you have turnover in the future. I invite you to think of it as an opportunity–an opportunity to dial in your systems, firm up your onboarding processes, investigate your culture, and apply some key resiliency tactics to your work. 

⚙️ What Can Be Done?

We can’t prevent all staff transitions, particularly in the current environment. But we can soften the blow with systems that are built for sustainability. Here’s how:

✅ 1. Codify the Work Before It Walks

Don’t wait until someone’s leaving to document their role. This usually results in a document that covers the basics, but none of the nuances, of that person’s work. Here are some starting points:

• Use a shared file system that’s organized, systematic, and allows for real-time collaboration (no more Final_Report_v3_FINALFINAL naming conventions, or #oops I forgot to upload the final version)

• Create living strategy documents with workflows, project timelines, and standard operating procedures (SOPs)

• Document relationships, contact points, communications, and dynamics–whether through a CRM or even a shared spreadsheet

• Normalize knowledge-sharing as part of the culture, not an afterthought–include knowledge sharing in team meetings, informal coffee chats, best practice documentation, a project showcase, or something else creative to make sure you’re sharing knowledge not just vertically, but horizontally as well

✅ 2. Invest in Interim Facilitation / Relationship Support

Sometimes, you can’t hire right away—but the work still needs to move forward and needs to be supported by someone besides a burnt out team leader. 

Bringing in a Fractional Strategy Officer or interim collective impact facilitator can:

• Keep key relationships intact

• Maintain clarity and coordination

• Give teams breathing room before hiring under pressure

This is exactly why I created The Team Shift—to support place-based organizations in between staffing decisions without losing momentum.

✅ 3. Design for Team Resilience, Not Individual Heroics

• Clarify roles (not just job titles)--have regular conversations about alignment, potential overlap, and leverage points on your team

• Build in redundancy for key functions–on one of my teams, this meant often leaning into co-facilitation rather than solo-facilitation

• Share power—not just work; when you’re operating from a true shared leadership model, the folks who have been brought along as leaders may be able to step in more fully for a bit. Shared leadership means networks are co-led or co-chaired by a community member or partner…and I mean actually co-led or co-chaired, not performatively.
  
  

✨ The Opportunity in Staff Turnover

Staff transitions are hard—but they can also be catalytic. One of the participants in my recent workshop said it perfectly:

“The result of turnover varies—if there was deep alignment, it can pose a risk. But if there wasn’t alignment, it’s an opportunity to source a more aligned staff member.”

Sometimes, a departure opens up exactly the kind of reset your organization didn’t know it needed.

It’s a moment to:

• Reassess whether the role, as designed, still meets the needs of the work

• Clarify where alignment has drifted—or never existed

• Invite fresh eyes to challenge assumptions and spark new energy

• Get creative about how you’re approaching the work
  

💡 Instead of rushing to fill a vacancy, this can be a chance to pause, reimagine, and realign.

Yes, the costs of turnover are real.

But so is the opportunity to evolve—toward a team structure, strategy, and staffing model that better matches where your work is headed.

🌱 The Work Deserves Better

When we say systems change takes time, we also have to build structures that can withstand the bumps along the way.

Staff transitions don’t have to derail everything.

But we need to stop building systems that depend on individual people holding it all together, and start building resilience into our teams and our work from the get-go.

🗣️ Want to Go Deeper?

If your team is facing (or anticipating) a transition, let’s talk.

You don’t have to hold it all while keeping the momentum alive.

👉 Book a 30-min free strategy session

Your Turn: 💬 What’s one resiliency move your team could make now to soften a future transition?