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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesBuild an engineering team people want to return to by making its identity about more than the people currently on the roster: set a clear performance bar, give employees a real voice in their growth and assignments, create work that encourages collaboration, and treat departures as relationship moments. These are management practices Meg Adams, Senior Director of Engineering at The New York Times, describes from experience—not a proven formula or a guarantee that every employee will want to stay or return.
Build a team identity that outlasts its current members
A team’s identity can rest on the standards it holds, the work it takes on, how people work together, and the memories they make—not only on who happens to be there today. That gives people a reason to value the experience they create together, even as membership changes.
Keep the performance bar clear
Address performance problems supportively and in a timely way. When persistent problems go unaddressed, colleagues may see the effects or carry extra work. A clear bar is not a reason to shame someone: explain the gap, offer useful support, and agree on what improvement looks like.
Connect preferences and growth to assignments
Ask employees what they want to learn, revisit those preferences, and let the answers influence project or team assignments. Adams describes allowing people to rank projects or teams. Asking is meaningful when it can affect actual decisions, rather than serving as a check-in with no bearing on the work people receive.
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Design work for collaboration and learning
Look for opportunities for colleagues to work together, learn from one another, and teach one another. Work designed so everyone stays in a separate lane can limit those interactions. Collaboration should serve the work, rather than become coordination for its own sake.
Create shared memories without prescribing one kind of fun
Novel experiences and small celebrations can make a team’s time together more memorable. They are options, not universal requirements: choose activities that fit the people involved instead of assuming everyone values the same events.
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Give feedback with both the present and the future in view
Feedback needs to address current performance, but Adams also recommends noticing patterns that could limit someone later in their career. Raise small, actionable concerns while they are still manageable, and explain them specifically. Waiting until a pattern has become a serious problem can make the eventual conversation harder.
A longer-term perspective should not make feedback vague or turn a manager’s guess about someone’s future into a verdict. Describe the behavior or pattern, its effect, and a practical next step the employee can act on now.
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Make a resignation conversation about the person first
A resignation creates real transition work, but the first response also tells the departing employee how their manager regards them. Adams recommends giving the person and their news attention before moving to replacement plans.
- Listen and acknowledge the news. Give the employee your attention and make room to hear about their decision.
- Support their next step. Celebrate what they are moving toward rather than treating the resignation only as a problem to solve.
- Plan the transition. Once you have addressed the person, work through handover and backfill needs.
- Keep the connection open. Adams describes following up after someone leaves through a meeting, email, or text.
Respectful treatment does not remove the need for a responsible handover. It makes clear that operational planning and care for the person can coexist.
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What a returning employee can—and cannot—tell you
Adams calls a returning employee a strong culture signal, particularly when that person had real alternatives. A former employee has experienced another team and can bring a useful point of comparison. Their decision to return can prompt managers to ask what made the experience here worth choosing again.
But returners are a selected group: by definition, they are former employees for whom returning was appealing enough to do. Their experience cannot establish that the team was healthy or suitable for everyone. People who left feeling excluded or unhappy may not come back, so their perspectives will not be represented by a return story.
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Adams puts the limit plainly: “A team people remember fondly is not automatically a team that was good for everyone on it.” Treat a return as one useful signal, not a scorecard for culture or proof that retention practices worked for every person.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What this advice establishes
Adams’s recommendations draw on her experience in seasonal retail management and engineering teams, including an account of an employee who left, experienced another team, and asked to return. Her article reports no survey, sample size, retention rate, or causal estimate. The practices are actionable management advice, but the account does not measure how much any one practice changes retention or predict which employees will return.
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