The reason matters a great deal.

Obviously if someone is leaving of their own volition, it is entirely appropriate for their reasons to be kept confidential. I’m talking here about terminations for behavior.

Although there certainly is the potential for embarrassment on the part of the departed employee, this is greatly outweighed (IMHO) but the huge benefit from comes from demonstrating that the things you SAY (about what good and bad performance looks like) actually match what you DO. All to often it’s easy to say, “we don’t tolerate assholes”, but then you don’t do anything about it when someone is being an asshole.

I’ve found that while all actions have the potential to send this message, some actions send stronger messages than others. And the three strongest messages I can send to my team are derived from who I promote, who I reward, and who I fire.

By hiding the reason someone has left - or even worse, using a falsehood (“he’s left to spend more time with his family”) - is too miss an amazing opportunity to make your culture real.