"Organisational restructure" has long been the softer way of saying reduction in headcount. In our current context, it's much more.
For many of the organisations we partner with at Progressional, a restructure is now a total redesign of the workforce and the way people work, a direct response to how quickly capability needs are shifting. As some roles disappear, entirely new ones are being built: digital transformation, AI and prompt engineering, cyber security, customer experience, data analytics.
That creates an unusual leadership problem. People who leave a business very often stay close to the people who remain. Why wouldn't they, they've been trusted colleagues, collaborators and mates, in many cases for years. And in those conversations, they hear that the organisation is hiring again, just for something different. The business saying goodbye to one group this month may be trying to attract an entirely different group next month.
Research from Glassdoor found that 83% of job seekers research company reviews and ratings before deciding where to apply. In other words, the people you're hoping to recruit tomorrow are often reading about how yesterday's people experienced your organisation.
That single fact should change how CEOs and Chief People Officers think about restructuring. It's no longer a private, internal event. It's a public demonstration of leadership, culture and values, and the commercial decisions themselves may well be necessary. But how they're led is where the real decisions sit, and it's what future employees, customers and industry peers will remember. Here are five of those decisions, worth making deliberately, before the process begins.
1. Decide that employer brand is a leadership call, not a talent acquisition task
Employer brand has traditionally sat with talent acquisition: the employee value proposition, the careers page, the campaign. That work remains important.
But employer brand is no longer solely what an organisation says about itself. It's shaped by what employees say after they've experienced it, particularly in the moments that test what the organisation claims to stand for.
That's a shift CEOs and HR leaders need to own personally, not delegate downward. Employer brand now spans the entire employee lifecycle: attraction, onboarding, development, career progression. Treating it as a recruitment initiative undersells how much is actually at stake, and how many stages of the relationship it touches.
2. Decide who you're speaking to: three audiences, not one
It's natural to focus on the people whose roles are directly affected. They are only one audience.
The second is the people who stay. They're watching closely, looking for evidence that the organisation's stated values still hold when things get difficult. The decisions leaders make, how they communicate, and the support they provide all shape confidence in leadership and perceptions of fairness. Research from CIPD shows that poorly managed workforce change reduces trust, morale and engagement among the people who remain, a pattern commonly known as survivor syndrome.
The third audience sits entirely outside the organisation: candidates, recruiters, customers, investors, professional networks. In a connected world, restructures rarely stay private. Stories travel quickly, and they often carry more weight than corporate messaging ever could.
Deciding, upfront, how you'll communicate to all three, not just the first, is a leadership decision, not a communications afterthought.
3. Decide how you want this moment remembered
A restructure might play out over a matter of weeks. Its effect on organisational reputation can run for years. Call it the employer brand echo.
People remember difficult periods more vividly than routine ones. The conversations they had with leaders, how transparent the communication was, the support they received: these become the stories they tell colleagues, friends and future employers, whether the organisation intends it or not.
LinkedIn Talent Solutions found that organisations with strong employer brands can reduce cost per hire by up to 50%, while attracting 50% more qualified applicants. Protecting employer brand through a period of change is not simply a communications exercise, it's a talent strategy. And it starts with deciding, before anything is announced, what story you want people telling afterwards.
4. Decide the standard of support for departing employees
This is where the ownership decision above gets tested in practice.
Career transition support is often treated as a line item: a benefit, a bare-minimum service, something to procure and forget. But the standard chosen here, generic versus considered, brief versus genuinely useful, says more about an organisation's values than almost anything else it does during a restructure.
People notice whether departing colleagues are treated with dignity, whether the support feels real, and whether the organisation follows through or simply ticks a box. That standard, once set, is hard to walk back.
5. Decide to support people, not a process
Every career transition is unique and deeply personal. Some people need immediate, practical support. Others need time to rebuild confidence, redefine direction, or reconnect with their strengths before they start looking again.
Supporting everyone in exactly the same way creates consistency. Supporting people according to what they actually need creates better outcomes, for the individual, and for the organisation's reputation long after the restructure is over.
Every organisation hopes to be recognised for its culture, leadership and values. Those qualities are visible during growth. They're remembered during change.
Organisations can't always control the market conditions that make workforce change necessary. They can control how people experience those moments, and what employees, both departing and remaining, say about the organisation afterwards. Because the people leaving your organisation today may well be the people you're hoping to hire tomorrow.
For organisations looking to support their people with the same care they invest in attracting them, it's worth exploring how Progressional approaches career transition, treating every individual as a person, not a process.
