💔 Redundancies: The 1 thing that sounds kind but isn’t

TL;DR

💔 Redundancies: The 1 thing that sounds kind but isn’t

😥 Can you promise redundancies won't happen again?

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Redundancies: The 1 thing that sounds kind but isn’t

When redundancies happen because the business needs to cut costs to survive or extend its runway, most leaders tend to default to words of comfort to soften the pain.

I understand the instinct😓. It feels like the kind thing to do, especially when our hands are tied financially (no enhanced package, no extended notice, nothing beyond what's statutory). Words of reassurance feel like the only currency we have left.

However, vague comfort rarely feels kind to the person receiving it. 

The invisible damage of vagueness

It might seem like a small thing…being a little imprecise, a little soft on the detail. But what we underestimate is how much this shapes employees' beliefs about leadership.

I've met so many people who, the moment they hear the word "redundancy," immediately disengage from the process. They’ve learned not to trust it because they've been burned before. They assume the decision is already made. That the consultation is box-ticking. That nothing they say will change anything.

That cynicism is the residue of being managed through hard moments instead of being partnered through them.

It becomes a partnership when leadership gives clarity and means it

I was in this situation once. The calculations were done. The forecasts were clear. The cost we needed to reduce was not going to change😔.

But the leadership team made a deliberate choice: we were not just going to support employees through a difficult time. We were going to treat them as partners in the company's survival.

We shared the goal and the org structure we believed would get us there, and then we listened. Really listened.

Because the goal was clear and shared, employees came back with a counter-proposal. They argued that certain roles were critical to the business's survival — and they were right. Leadership accepted it, which meant some roles that were originally safe became impacted, and some that were at risk were retained.

Nobody was happy about the outcome. But people could see the respect in how it was handled. The partnership was genuine, and it showed in the actions.

The way we communicate and act in this moment doesn't just affect how people feel today. It shapes what they expect from leadership for the rest of their careers.

Keep the 🧭Communication GPS in mind to give clarity

G = Goal: Be honest about the business reality. For example: "We need to reduce costs by 30% to ensure the company can operate for the next 18 months. We are doubling down on [core product / key ICP / path to profitability], and that means stopping everything that doesn't directly move that forward."

That's not harsh. That's respecting your employees as adults who can handle the truth, rather than shielding them with language that protects us more than it protects them.

P = Process: How will decisions be made? Who is involved? When will people know? If you're running a formal consultation, say so and mean it. Don't let it become a formality that everyone knows is just a compliance checkbox.

S = Support: How will people be treated throughout? With transparency, respect, and practical support: e.g. financial where possible, emotional and career transition support where not.

Clarity of goal, process, and intent (even when the outcome is hard) is how we lead with integrity. It's what allows people to trust what we say next. It's what lets them grieve without being strung along. And it's the difference between a redundancy that permanently damages trust and one that allows a company to move through a hard moment together.

Give your employees a higher standard of leadership than they've been shown before

When we're facing this, the instinct is to make it as painless as possible — for everyone, including ourselves. Vague comfort feels kinder than clarity. But real care requires courage. The courage to name the reality. The courage to hold space for people's grief while staying anchored to the goal. The courage to lean into the discomfort together rather than manage people through it from a distance.

We can't always give people more money. But we can always give employees higher expectations of management than settling for less in their careers.

Can you promise redundancies won't happen again?

Someone will ask this question. If not in the all-hands, it will come up in the conversation with the employee representative. In a one-to-one with a line manager. In a Slack message sent at 11 pm from someone who couldn't sleep.

"Can you promise redundancies won't happen again?"

HR leaders, prepare your founders and leaders for this. Because their instinctive answer? It's the same trap as Part 1 above: vague comfort.

"I can promise we will do everything in our power to make sure this never happens again."

Or a version of it:

The intent is kindness.

But if any of those statements turn out not to be true (and in a start-up, they might), as leaders, we don't just lose trust. We lose credibility. And credibility, once lost in a moment like this, is very hard to earn back.

Instead of a promise, give confidence

Our employees know how start-ups work, especially those building to scale in today's environment. They know we operate in uncertainty: market shifts, funding changes, strategy pivots, bets that don't pay off.

They are not expecting a guarantee. They are not naive.

What they need is not a promise, it’s confidence. And confidence, unlike a promise, can be grounded in something tangible — something they can act on too.

Luana Pinto, an HR leader, captured it precisely when she was preparing her leaders for a round of redundancies recently: "Are we in a position to really cascade that down properly, and answer questions to give confidence? Our job is to give people enough clarity that they don't fill the gaps with fear."

That’s the distinction. A promise is for the communicator = it soothes the discomfort of the moment. Confidence is for the receiver = it gives them enough clarity that their questions don't turn into fear.

Name the conditions, not promise the outcome 

Instead of promising that redundancies won't happen again, name what would need to be true for them not to. For example, when redundancies are the result of runway preservation or cost-related survival, 3 conditions worth naming are:

The revenue threshold: What does the business need to bring in (and sustain) for this not to happen again? Name the number. "We need to reach £X in ARR and hold it for 2 consecutive quarters." That's not a promise, it's a target your employees can now watch alongside you and act on to help you reach.

The runway floor: What does financial stability look like for your company? How many months of runway do you need in the bank before you feel secure? Say it out loud. "We won't feel stable until we have at least 12 months of runway at any given time." Now they know what you're building towards (and so does your business 🎯).

The early warning system: What signals will tell you, before it becomes a crisis, that something needs to change? And will you share those signals with your people, or carry them alone? This is the question most founders never ask themselves. The ones who do earn something rare: a team that feels like a partner in the outcome, not a casualty of it.

(The above are examples, not a checklist. Name the conditions that are most relevant to your business.)

Accountable leaders retain the people you need most

Ask any HR leader what they notice in the months after a redundancy. They will say the same thing: some of the people the business most needed to stay…left.

How founders and leadership answer "Can you promise this won't happen again?" matters more than most realise. When done well, it does 3 things at once:

That is the difference between our best people updating their CV this weekend – and deciding to stay.

You can’t promise redundancies won't happen again

But you can give your employees confidence by naming what would need to be true for it not to.

That is not a lesser answer. It is a more honest one that allows them the autonomy to determine their own fate – and yours.

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