how to replace a beloved employee who died

A reader writes:

Earlier this year, an employee of mine suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. He was excellent at his job and extremely well-liked by the rest of our department. His partner also works here.

We are currently interviewing for someone to fill the now-empty role. At what point (if ever) is it appropriate to relay any of this to the candidates? So far, no one has asked why the job is open. While folks in the department are wonderful people, I have no idea whether any leftover resentment, awkwardness, or other weirdness may happen when our new person starts their job. There is some interaction between this position and the partner’s position, so I’d like to give the new person a heads-up on that level, at some point.

I don’t want to make things weird, but want to give the future/new employee an appropriate level of information so they can integrate well into the department.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

• I need to stop trying to solve problems that aren’t mine
• Allergies on video calls

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