Surviving Turnover: How to Stay on Track When the Team Keeps Changing

Turnover isn’t a disruption. It’s a certainty.

Staffing changes are no longer a rare occurrence in the events industry. They’re the norm. And if you’re not planning for it, you’re leaving your entire strategy vulnerable to interruption, rework, or outright abandonment.

Here’s how to prepare for the inevitable and stay on track when the team keeps changing.

Design for Continuity

Start with structure. Build your team roles around functions, not personalities. That means identifying what the work requires - strategy, execution, communication, relationship management - and building position descriptions that clarify responsibilities, overlaps, and handoff points.

It also means investing in onboarding. Have clear documentation, sample timelines, vendor contact sheets, sponsor fulfillment plans, post-event report templates, and cross-functional partner lists ready. These materials are essential for setting up new team members for success.

When roles are designed well and documentation exists, it’s easier to slot someone new into the system and keep moving forward.

Turnover cost can range from 33% to 200% of an employee’s salary depending on role and level, making continuity practices a critical operational strategy (Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM], 2022).

Protect the Plan

What often gets lost during turnover isn’t just tasks - it’s strategy.

When one person holds the vision for the event portfolio in their head, their departure creates a vacuum. That’s why it’s critical to ensure your strategy is visible, shareable, and owned by more than one person.

If you have a three-year roadmap, your 12-month program plan, or a content evolution strategy - get it out of inboxes and private folders. Make it visible. Revisit it quarterly. Talk about it openly. It’s not just a planning tool - it’s an onboarding asset, too.

Over an 18-month period between 2021 and 2023, 72% of my team turned over. The events industry had reawakened after the pandemic, and job opportunities were suddenly abundant. We had just completed a major reorganization and put our strategic plan in place - but we were tested quickly. Thanks to that plan, we didn’t lose our way. We plugged new hires into clearly defined roles and responsibilities and kept pushing forward. Without that strategic foundation, we wouldn’t have stayed on track.

This is the real benefit of documenting and aligning your event strategy: it can absorb shock, maintain momentum, and make sure that what you’re building doesn't collapse every time someone exits.

Empower People Quickly

Turnover slows you down - especially if you withhold decision-making authority from new hires.

Too often, organizations place new staff in a months-long observation window, where they aren’t allowed to make real decisions. In events, that’s a recipe for disaster. There’s always something urgent. Always a decision to be made.

Pair people with a seasoned peer, coach them through initial choices, and give them room to own outcomes. A smart handoff is better than a stalled one. And with the right onboarding and documentation, you’re setting them up to win.

Psychological empowerment - feeling trusted and authorized to act—has been directly tied to faster employee performance and retention (Spreitzer, 2008).

Build in Bench Strength

Don’t wait for turnover to develop talent.

If your entire event portfolio depends on a single leader or planner, you’re always one exit away from disruption. Instead, create shared visibility, rotate responsibilities when possible, and include multiple people in strategy sessions.

That way, if someone leaves, someone else has the context and confidence to step in - even temporarily.

And don’t forget internal mobility. You may already have someone with deep institutional knowledge and high potential. Invest in their development. It’s easier to promote someone who knows your events than start from scratch.

According to McKinsey, organizations with strong internal talent pipelines are 2.2 times more likely to outperform their peers (Barsh et al., 2017).

Keep Relationships Warm

When a key team member leaves, so do their vendor relationships, speaker contacts, and sponsor rapport - unless you prepare.

That’s why your CRM should be a shared tool. That’s why sponsor calls should be led by a team of two. That’s why shared inboxes, centralized notes, and collaborative documentation aren’t just conveniences - they’re strategic necessities.

Yes, it’s about knowledge management. But more importantly, it’s about continuity of trust. Your partners, vendors, and contributors should never feel like they’re starting over just because someone on your team has moved on.

It’s also important to maintain relationships with high-performing employees after they leave. The grass isn’t always greener - and sometimes a return is the right move for both sides. One way we mitigated the impact of a significant wave of turnover on my team was by rehiring a former staff member. Because she already understood our systems, processes, and culture, she was able to hit the ground running - and helped accelerate the learning curve for several new hires. Her return added stability, credibility, and valuable institutional memory at a time when we needed it most.

Make It a Culture, Not a Crisis

You can’t prevent turnover. But you can change how your organization responds to it.

When you normalize documentation, transparency, and knowledge sharing, you make turnover survivable. When you invest in onboarding and internal development, you build confidence and capacity.

And when you build an event strategy that’s visible, accessible, and adaptable, you don’t just survive turnover - you emerge stronger from it.

The Final Word

Turnover is hard. But it doesn’t have to derail your event strategy.

Design roles for continuity. Protect your strategic plan. Empower people early. Strengthen the bench. Share the relationships.

If you do those five things, you’ll have a more resilient team and a more consistent event experience—even when the faces around the table change.

How We Can Help

We work with organizations to design roles, team structures, onboarding tools, and strategic planning systems that absorb turnover without losing momentum. If you’re tired of restarting every time someone leaves, we can help you build an approach that endures.

Contact us at todd@eventcraftstudios.com or www.eventcraftstudios.com/contact.

References

Barsh, J., Mogelof, J., & Webb, C. (2017). The power of internal mobility. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-power-of-internal-mobility

SHRM. (2022). The real cost of turnover. Society for Human Resource Management. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/the-real-cost-of-turnover.aspx

Spreitzer, G. (2008). Taking stock: A review of more than twenty years of research on empowerment at work. In J. Barling & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Behavior: Volume One: Micro Approaches (pp. 54–72). SAGE Publications.