Last month, after four and a half years, I said goodbye to Pinterest. Though I loved my team of UX researchers and was grateful for my experience, I knew it was time for a change. (As it has for so many of us, the pandemic had given me ample opportunity for reflection.) So I gave my formal notice and began the process of rolling out the news to my peers, direct reports, and the larger organization.
It’s hard enough to say goodbye to coworkers under normal circumstances. How do you say goodbye, then, to a colleague—whether they’ll be gone for a few months on parental leave or are moving on entirely—when we’re all remote? How do you plan a proper send-off from afar?
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The pandemic and widespread remote work that came with it have changed what options we can even consider. We can no longer easily grab a coffee with a colleague we’ve come to admire or a final lunch with our favorite work wife. Nor can we happily and luckily bump into a work friend in the communal kitchen one last time or enjoy cake and bubbly with the coworkers we’ve spent so much of our day-to-day lives with. And there’s certainly no way to have an in-person happy hour or dinner as a final goodbye, either.
But a farewell event is an important ritual that helps us process transitions. For the foreseeable future, most of us will need to be prepared to say our farewell over video call. Though the nature of a virtual event is necessarily different, you can still get creative with it, and even have a little fun.
Whether you’re planning someone else's farewell event or providing input to your team on your own, here are a few things I’ve learned about what makes a good virtual goodbye—through my own departure and those of fellow colleagues.
