Lost in Transition: How Understanding Loss Supports Workplace Well-Being for All
Workplace transitions — from layoffs to Gen AI and return-to-office mandates — create emotional losses for both leaders and employees. This piece explores coping mechanisms, leadership responses, and how to navigate change together.
More is considered better for employee well-being. From “social welfare secretaries” in the 1880s in the U.S. to modern-day mental health and mindfulness training to destress the post-COVID hybrid workforce, companies invest heavily to promote productivity.
However, despite these investments, improvements in engagement and well-being have largely failed to materialize. Employee engagement at work has hovered around 30% for nearly 20 years in the US. Change management continues to remain quixotic. And the internet is replete with terms and memes for poor attachment to work and skirting responsibility.
More recently, the focus on well-being and mental health not only did not bring the results companies wanted, but it also led to moral injury when workers invariably realized that companies could not really care about persons or solve untractable societal issues.
Individual leaders might care — until business demands otherwise, as illustrated by the current painful waves of layoffs, the pullback from Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and ESG and corporate social responsibility intentions, and the tug-of-war around workplace flexibility and digital transformation efforts.
These transformation bring about loss, undermining employees’ core workplace needs: autonomy, stability, and sense of identity and worth. As employees reevaluate their relationship with work and the company, they feel alienated, frustrated, and sad — often about what has been or is about to be lost.
Talking about loss and how we cope with it is not easy at work, especially because the workplace is driven by individuals who focus on accumulating and controlling assets, influence, and wealth.
However, hypercompetitiveness — the need to compete and win at all costs as a means of maintaining or enhancing one’s own self-worth — might have fuelled their success.
As a result, leaders often seem ill-equipped to support employees and others when the business world inevitably shifts. Companies and leaders tend to respond rationally and want to control the impact of change, for instance, focusing on the logistics of separations, the rules for remote work, and the rationale for consolidations.
The more accustomed we are to winning and maintaining control, the more painful losses can become. From layoffs to workplace restructuring and pushback on corporate efforts around DEI and ESG, leaders might experience the sting of several losses:
- Loss of control over a dispersed workforce and volatile market, and the loss of a sense of stability or predictability in their roles can create anxiety about the future.
- Loss of invincibility as social media scrutiny exposes even minor missteps and operating in a visual world that is often focused on how in control and “good” leaders appear.
- Loss of relevance as technology renders management layers obsolete and leads to losing staff.
- Loss of potency as leaders may feel their experience or traditional leadership methods are becoming outdated.
- Loss of respect and trust, as leadership decisions increasingly feel like a no-win scenario.
Through such dislocations, leaders are often trained to share their emotions and still pretend to be okay, further deepening the divide with employees who are increasingly comfortable sharing their complaints and ill-ease—inside the company and also on social networks.
Whether you are a CEO or freelance writer, a common psychological response to loss is the attempt to regain control, which we are seeing now play out at work and in society. Control is often a response to coping, the process of managing the demands of a stressful event, such as a loss. Research has identified four main coping styles: over control, under-control (or passive coping), active coping, and surrender. And over-indexing on control in time of loss can erode trust.
In this piece, we explore how loss impacts leaders and employees and why understanding loss—whether related to the loss of jobs, identity, or purpose—and coping and control mechanisms can help leaders and employees have different conversations, develop empathy, promote well-being, and rebuild trust. We end with a role-play around returning to work.
[We discuss supporting employees grieving loved ones in another post].
The Inevitable Losses We Face
Any change involves some level of loss, and it is said that life is a series of losses. Every loss is like a death. This is not necessarily a physical death, but loss entails that a part of us, a piece of our life, has died and is irretrievably lost. The thing we wanted is no longer available to us. And throughout, we experience perhaps smaller and less visible losses, such as loss of looks, lifestyle, capacities, influence, fertility, security, or relevance.
The list of losses is as long as the lives that experience them. The table classifies key ones to help us reflect on our own.
Whether it’s the loss of a job, the erosion of youth, or declining health, each represents a significant disruption to one’s perceived sense of control, self, stability, and future. Unlike the loss of a loved one, these forms of loss often feel insidious and ongoing, reshaping how we see ourselves and our environment and aspirations.
These experiences are particularly hard to manage because they attack the narratives we’ve constructed about who we are and our future.
At its core, loss is a threat to identity.
Jobs, for example, are not just economic vehicles; they are often intertwined with how we define ourselves and our value in the world. Losing a job doesn’t just mean financial instability; it means confronting a gap in one’s sense of purpose and worth.
Similarly, as people age and confront the natural decline in physical ability, youth is often conflated with potential and power. At work, older workers are often typecast as being hapless around technology.
Health issues can be particularly devastating because they limit autonomy, creating a dependency that feels like a reversal of the progress made throughout life.
Losing these personal aspects means contending with an erosion of self-worth and perceived ability to engage fully with the world.
Grief: The Emotional Response
Grief is often described as a powerful, multifaceted, and often uncontrollable response to a personally painful event. It is an individual and unique process of expressing and processing our emotions, feelings, and reactions to a loss. There are very different aspects of grief.
Sometimes, we experience anticipatory grief, which occurs before a loss, when someone is aware of a big change and begins to envision their life after it. Examples here might be a divorce, a child’s departure to college, or caring for an elderly or ill individual (see a post on how employers can support caregiving employees). This grief can often be invisible at work, so employees need to deal with challenges even though their minds and hearts are burdened.
Disenfranchised grief can present when a loss is not openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported. Examples of disenfranchised grief include the loss of a pet, perinatal losses (nearly 2 million in the US per year), elective abortions (nearly 1 million in the US per year), loss of a body part, loss of a personality from dementia, and loss of a loved one who is not “blood-related” (i.e., a partner, extramarital lover, or in-laws).
In the case of an ambiguous loss, we don’t know where that person might be, such as the loss of a missing person.
Individuals often experience cumulative loss — in the case of a divorce, for example, loss of family, income, domicile, and social status.
What makes a loss particularly difficult to process is the invisibility of the experience. When you lose a parent or a loved one, there might be a communal acknowledgment of grief. However, losing a job, youth, or health often lacks the same collective mourning process. The individual grappling with this loss is expected to move forward, rebuild, or adjust without society offering explicit rituals or support structures. This isolation often leads to suppressed emotions, with individuals feeling pressured to mask their grief and prove their resilience, especially at work.
Inflection Points and Mental Health: The Workplace Impact
Often, these moments will be inflection points that can make it more challenging for us to remain in good mental health. Depression can be linked to a number of losses, which are often brought about by changes in our personal lives (getting divorced, having a baby, etc.), generational transitions (dealing with the multi-generation workplace), emotional inflection points (coming from an increasingly volatile, interconnected world), and the impact of economic and technological changes (such as automation) that alter the way we work or threaten our very livelihood.
At these moments, managers need to be particularly attentive because these inflection points and how individuals and companies respond to the changes they bring can strain even the highest performing best persons, teams, and organizations.
As these personal losses accumulate, they inevitably impact how individuals show up at work, shaping their interactions, productivity, and sense of belonging. When their grief isn’t acknowledged in the workplace, they may act out (e.g., disengagement, burnout, or aggression).
The Way We Tend to React to Loss
Ancient wisdom and religious traditions consider loss, suffering, and sorrow unavoidable aspects of life. Grieving and mourning are not rarities but an integral part of normal life. In many cultures, especially in the West, we don’t honor their importance and tend to ignore, hide, or amplify them without properly addressing them.
When we are faced with a loss, we are forced to make a choice. We can wallow in despair over what we have lost, wishing what has changed had never changed. Or we can engage with grief, which allows you to adapt and keep moving forward. Healthy grieving is not easy, and often, the things we cherish the most are the things that bear the greatest cost.
The compensatory mechanisms that emerge in response to these losses vary depending on the individual’s personality and support system. Some people, when faced with the loss of a job, might overcompensate by throwing themselves into the job search, determined to bounce back as quickly as possible. While this is a proactive approach, it can also come with the risk of burnout, especially if the job market proves less welcoming than anticipated.
Others might retreat inward, battling self-doubt and losing motivation, overwhelmed by the feeling that they are no longer valuable or needed. This reaction often stems from societal pressures to derive identity from productivity and youth, making it harder for individuals to recalibrate their self-worth without external validation.
A common psychological response to loss is the attempt to regain control.
In the face of aging or declining health, this can manifest in hyper-focus on external appearances or health routines. Cosmetic procedures or extreme fitness regimens can sometimes serve as a way to cling to the vestiges of youth, reinforcing the idea that age can be defied. Staying active and healthy is a positive endeavor, but an overemphasis on appearances can exacerbate feelings of failure when the inevitable limitations of aging are upon us. Although well-intentioned, this form of compensatory behavior can mask the underlying grief associated with the passage of time.
Understand Coping Skills to Promote Resilience
Given the complexity of losses in the workplace, it’s crucial to understand how people cope and what leaders can do to support others. Coping is more than managing stress — it’s about adapting to loss in sustainable ways.
As mentioned in the introduction, coping is described as the process of managing the demands of a stressful event. A person who can cope with a stressful event can master, minimize, or tolerate the stress that is associated with the event. People differ in the way in which they deal with challenging life events. While some people give up and succumb to their despair, others persist and face life’s biggest challenges with hope and resilience. Research has identified four main coping styles: over-control, under-control (or passive coping), active coping, and surrender.
People often underestimate the amount of personal control they have over events. However, there are limits to personal control. In some situations, the only way to enhance personal control may be to let go of control.
People may exert more control than they have or not have enough control (over the situation). Over-control is often characterized by obsessive thinking. In attempts to control the uncontrollable, people solve problems in their heads and become trapped in an endless process of ‘figuring it out.’
People who engage in passive coping tend to deny responsibility and relinquish control of the stressful situation and their reaction to that situation to others. Examples of passive coping strategies include complaining to others to cope with difficult feelings, get sympathy, or elicit their help; withdrawing from challenging activities; or relying on drugs or alcohol) to cope with the situation.
Active coping refers to thoughts and behaviors directed at problem-solving. It entails taking direct action to deal with a stressor and reduce its effects. Active coping aims to either change the nature of the stressful situation or modify how one thinks and feels about it. People who engage in active coping rely on their resources to deal with a situation. Examples include solving problems, investing more effort, seeking information, or reframing the meaning of the problem.
Surrendering is an effective way of coping with certain challenges, such as when exerting control is non-productive or even counterproductive. Examples include trying to fall asleep or trying to get rid of negative thoughts. Counterintuitively, people who try to control their sleep often find themselves awake for hours.
Similarly, people who try to “get out of their head” and stop their thoughts wind up spending even more time “in their head.” The solution here is not to exert less control but to surrender to the uncontrollable and accept that there is nothing one can do to change the situation.
Opening the Aperture on a Job Loss
While initially devastating, losing a job, for instance, can also be an opportunity to reevaluate personal priorities and explore new paths. This reframing, however, requires a level of emotional resilience. It often demands that individuals confront the deeper societal narratives about success and value and challenge the idea that productivity and youth are the only metrics by which worth is measured.
Let’s say that I always expected to work in consulting and make partner. Then I get laid off. The process of reframing here needs to go through a careful and sober observation of why I had planned to make partner in the first place: Was it the intellectual challenge? The pay? The prestige? The impact on clients? Then I can think where else I might find these elements — perhaps in an academic setting?
A key factor in how people cope with loss is the strength and quality of their social networks. People with more supportive social connections are better equipped to manage the emotional toll of loss. This support, however, must be genuine and empathetic; many people facing job loss or health decline report feeling dismissed or misunderstood by well-meaning friends and family who push them to “stay positive” or “get over it.”
True support acknowledges the difficulty of the experience without rushing the individual through their grieving process. It also means remaining in touch even after they get fired or canceled. Often, like after a divorce, we take sides and progressively erase ourselves from the lives of our “former” friends and colleagues.
Three Approaches to Loss: Restoration, Rehabilitation, and Realization
People’s reactions to loss are almost as varied as the kinds of loss they can react to. However, broadly speaking, in the context of where the personal and professional intersect, there are three approaches:
- Restoration
- Rehabilitation
- Realization
These personal responses to loss mirror what we see in professional settings, where leaders and employees alike often grapple with similar challenges — especially in the face of business disruptions like mergers, layoffs, or failed initiatives.
Restoration is a kind of delusional reflex in which we do everything in our power to hold onto what is lost and force it back into our lives. We can do this through many maladaptive ways like ruminating on what could have been done differently by others or by ourselves. This doesn’t do anything other than put us transiently in a fantasy where we have the agency to recoup our loss, but of course, when the fantasy ends, so does self-soothing.
In professional settings, say after a merger or as part of a change management effort, leaders often find themselves in Restoration mode — attempting to regain what was lost through restructuring or downsizing — without truly addressing the deeper emotional impact on employees. In these scenarios, the goal is often to “restore” the organization to profitability or stability, but this approach can fail to address the deeper emotional and psychological losses experienced by employees. Change management or M&A activities therefore rarely meet corporate objectives. Business plans do not include any guidelines on how to reappraise or recalibrate one’s sense of self following the unfortunate realization that one’s investment was, after all, a loss or that a merger or strategic initiative didn’t meet expectations.
Rehabilitation stems the damage, so you don’t lose more than what you already have, salvages what remains of value pertaining to what has been lost, and selects a new approach to a different object/objective that hopefully brings greater security (and not just a sense of security) for future action. It’s a tall order to rehabilitate after a loss, and while healing and accommodation are possible, it is not restoration or recovery, and this can be dissatisfying. However, while Rehabilitation offers a more forward-looking approach than Restoration, it often leaves a lingering sense of dissatisfaction, as true recovery or restoration remains elusive.
A corporate example here could be around digital transformation efforts that occur after a business experiences disruption, such as declining market share due to technological advances. In this case, a company may accept that its traditional business model — based on older technology or outdated processes — has been permanently disrupted. Instead of trying to “restore” the business to its previous state, the leadership team focuses on adopting new digital tools, retraining employees, and pivoting to new markets.
However, this process can leave many employees feeling unmoored. The skills they’ve honed for years may no longer be relevant, and the company’s shifting priorities may lead to a sense of uncertainty. While the company is “rehabilitating” by adapting to technological change, employees may still experience a sense of loss — of mastery, relevance, or purpose. They are expected to quickly adopt new systems and ways of working, which can be both exhausting and frustrating, especially for those who struggle to keep up.
Lastly, there is Realization. Realization is a reappraisal of the object’s role falsely (or at least inaccurately), signifying an intrinsic value to a larger state that, in the final analysis, was never there at all. Realization involves acknowledging that something once seen as valuable may not have held the importance it was given. It should be let go of if you are to find a state (or status) that will allow you to remain a purposeful actor in a world of meaningful choices.
In a business setting would be when a company, or its leadership, undertsands that something they once believed to be central to their success or identity — whether it’s a product, business model, or market position — was never as critical or valuable as they thought. Or that their value was actually a totally different one — once Kodak let go of producing film, it could be in the business of capturing and sharing moments. Letting go of their attachment to film allowed them to redefine their purpose.
Similarly, on a personal level, we might cling to attributes like good looks or youth, believing they define our worth. But perhaps our value and attractiveness to others lie in our wisdom, relationships, and contributions to the world. Letting go of these superficial attachments allows us to embrace more meaningful roles and identities.
At its core, loss is a change state. Accepting and reframing the experience of loss is a more sustainable form of coping. Therefore, it should be amenable to the reinterpretation of change management approaches. Managers can deploy these revised paradigms to address or prepare companies and colleagues for loss that will affect individuals and/or institutions that employ them.
Leaders can spot signs of overcontrol or passive coping in their teams and step in to offer support, encouraging active coping strategies such as problem-solving and reframing challenges. The greatest leaders recognize the signs of maladaptive coping in themselves first.
Deep Dive: The Unexpressed Losses from Return-to-Work Mandates
“Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak, whispers the o’er fraught heart and bids it break.” — Shakespeare, Macbeth
For many employees, the shift back to the office after a prolonged period of remote work feels like more than just a logistical change — it’s a significant emotional and lifestyle adjustment that can stir up a deep sense of loss, which is playing out on social media. Below are a few losses that might be coming into play.
1. Loss of Autonomy: Remote work gave employees greater control over their schedules and environment. Many could better manage their work-life balance, fitting in personal tasks, family time, or self-care between work commitments. The mandate to return to the office often feels like a loss of freedom, with rigid schedules and commutes replacing the flexibility they now demand.
2. Loss of Time: Commuting is one of the most tangible losses employees feel when returning to the office. Hours previously spent on personal pursuits — whether it’s exercise, spending time with loved ones, or simply relaxing — are now consumed by traffic or public transport. This perceived waste of time can lead to resentment, especially if employees feel they are just as productive at home. For many, the pain is amplified, especially for those who moved further from urban centers during the pandemic and now face longer commutes
3. Loss of Comfort: Employees have tailored their surroundings to suit their needs—whether it’s a quiet, distraction-free space or the ability to work in casual attire. Returning to the office can feel like stepping back into an environment that’s less accommodating, more formal, and less conducive to personal work styles. It also usually entails dressing for work, which can be a form of loss of personality.
4. Loss of Trust: A mandated return to the office can also signal to employees that their company doesn’t trust them to be productive while working remotely. This unspoken message can erode the sense of trust and respect that remote work fostered, leading to feelings of demotivation and disengagement. Employees may feel that despite their proven ability to perform, they’re being forced into a more traditional model of work that doesn’t recognize their value.
5. Loss of Personal Balance: During the pandemic, many employees experienced an integration of their personal and professional lives, which, for some, improved their mental health. Managing caregiving responsibilities, being there for kids, attending household duties, or engaging in personal hobbies between meetings created a more holistic sense of well-being. A mandated return to the office can disrupt this balance, leading to stress and a sense of imbalance in their personal lives.
6. Loss of Privacy and Psychological Safety: For some, working from home allowed for psychological safety and privacy that isn’t present in the office. The office environment can feel overwhelming, especially for introverted individuals or those who thrive in quieter spaces. Returning to open office layouts or shared workspaces can make employees feel exposed or distracted, leading to decreased productivity and heightened anxiety.
Understanding the emotional layers of workplace transitions is just the start. Progress would be more self-reflection around our own emotionality and thoughtful conversations where employees feel safe to express themselves.
But how would this look in practice?
Role Play: A Different Kind of Conversation about WFH
What would it sound like if both parties were less focused on logistics and negotiating the details (“Will you commit to being there from 11 to 12 every fifth Tuesday of the month?”)?
The conversation below centers on the emotional impact of losing autonomy, balance, and control rather than just logistics.
HR (Sam): “There’s been a lot of back-and-forth about returning to the office, and I wanted to hear from you directly — not just about the logistics, but about how this change is really affecting you.”
Employee (Alex): “I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed. It’s more than just the commute or setting up a new routine. Working from home gave me a sense of balance I hadn’t experienced before, and I feel like I’m losing that. It feels like I’m losing control over my day-to-day life.”
Sam: “I hear you. That loss of autonomy is real, and having more flexibility taken away can feel like a loss of freedom. Have you had time to think about what specific aspects of that balance you’re most afraid of losing?”
Alex: “It’s the time I got back — time for my family and myself. I’m worried I’ll lose that calm, you know? It’s hard to explain, but it feels like I’m trading in something that gave me a lot of peace for the stress of work.”
Sam: “That makes perfect sense. It sounds like you’re grieving the comfort and control you had over your personal and professional life. Instead of focusing on the mandate itself, maybe we can explore ways to mitigate that feeling of loss. What would help you feel less like you’re losing that calm and balance?”
Alex: “Maybe being in the office fewer days would help, or being able to leave early sometimes to manage school pick-ups or not having to worry about my pet being home alone all day. And honestly, even if the company acknowledged that this is tough emotionally, it would make a difference. Right now, it feels like no one gets how much this affects people.”
Sam: “That’s a really important point. Acknowledging the emotional side of this transition is something we’ve been working on in HR, but hearing it from you really underscores how essential that is. I can definitely raise the idea of more flexibility in office days, but we also need to open up more spaces for employees to talk about the emotional impact of this shift. Your well-being is important.”
Alex: “Thanks. It feels better knowing that this isn’t just about policies and timelines but the bigger picture. I know change is inevitable, but losing that sense of balance has been weighing on me.”
Sam: “I completely understand. Let’s work together on figuring out how we can keep that balance in place as much as possible, even as we move forward with the return. And I’ll make sure your concerns about emotional well-being are part of the conversation with leadership. Perhaps we can help you get time back by providing support with daily chores, such as dog walking, house cleaning, or a stipend for gas.”
However, with more vulnerability and openness come risks. Here are some though questions:
How do you think this would transpire in real life?
What happens when individuals with low emotional maturity start to unpack emotions, especially in situations of power imbalances? How do we maintain professional and emotional boundaries? (see ideas here)
Would you feel comfortable opening up to HR or leadership?And would you be able to handle others being honest with you? If employees were empowered to express their real concerns about returning to the office (e.g., social anxiety, sleep issues, dependency on comfort snacking, child having a hard time getting up), could they and their managers perhaps negotiate different accommodations — a quieter office, a subsidized sleep test, the freedom to use their phone in meetings, or the ability to pace while thinking?
What kind of talent, skills, and training would a compliance- and enforcement-focused HR manager need to develop relationships where both parties could negotiate the best alternative to no agreement (BATNA)? Training in emotional intelligence, active listening, and conflict resolution would be essential to creating the trust needed for employees to express their true concerns and for meaningful negotiation to take place.
Would this approach allow employees to be seen as humans, whose emotions around loss and coping mechanisms are not to be suppressed nor discounted but seen as important source of information? Not just as pawns to be placed strategically, but as people with unique needs and concerns.
Would this reduce psychological resistance? Could such an approach lower the psychological reactance we often observe in children who resist authority, sometimes to their own detriment? Could the same pattern of rebellion exist in the workplace? (see ideas from couple’s therapy and the shame compass here)
Would this lead to uneven policies at work?
Could this approach lead to more unevenness in workplace rules, with growing exceptions based on individual needs, or would it actually create a more humane and responsive organization?
From Control to Connection and Trust
Ultimately, loss is a universal experience that remains deeply personal. Grief is a gateway into deeper affection and a more robust commitment to showing up. It’s also, paradoxically, the gateway to a lot more joy.
As Alfred Schopenhauer believed, “mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” We could build better organizations if we found ways to learn about loss together and discuss the worth of our things openly. If not, we will continue to partly negotiate with imperfect information and elevated emotionality.
In the context of business and mental health, addressing loss requires creating spaces where individuals can express vulnerability without fear of judgment or reprisal. For organizations, this means fostering environments where employees who face job loss, health issues, or aging are not stigmatized or marginalized (e.g., programs around menopause).
Encouraging open conversations about mental health and the emotional impact of life transitions can help dismantle the taboos that make the loss feel isolating. Additionally, businesses that support employees through transitions with empathy and resources, such as mental health support or career coaching, contribute to creating a more resilient workforce.
As always this post reflects lots of research and conversations with practitioners, coaches, therapists, classmates, and co-authors. I am the channel for their thoughts and wisdom.
