You cut jobs to give the business a future. But what if the way you handle those cuts makes the remaining team less willing, or less able, to deliver it?
If the work stays the same, questions go unanswered, and the people you depend on start looking elsewhere, the cuts can undermine the recovery they were meant to support. The savings are real. So is the damage that can follow.
The layoff conversations are finished. The announcement has gone out. There is a new organization chart and a plan for moving forward. For the leadership team, this may feel like the end of an exhausting process.
For the people who remain, some of the biggest questions are only starting now. Is the business in a better position? Why were those people chosen? What happens to their work? Could I be next?
Keeping their job does not answer those questions. If you need this team to deliver a revised plan, you need to understand what would make them believe in it.
What the remaining team has seen
In Compounding Trust, I describe an organization that reduced its headcount by 22%. The aim was to extend its runway by eighteen months. The company made a serious effort to support departing employees, including severance, extended healthcare, and help finding other work.
Those things mattered. The people who remain notice how you treat their colleagues and friends. It tells them something about how they might be treated one day.
Leadership had explained the broad reason for the cuts. It had not answered the remaining team’s questions about the future. Explaining why you made a decision is only part of helping people understand what it means for them.
Keeping their job does not mean keeping their confidence
Someone joined because they expected to build a career here. Someone else wanted stability, interesting work, or enough space for family life. After a layoff, they may reasonably wonder whether those things are still achievable at this organization.
In the Compounding Trust framework, trust is the confidence an individual has that they can achieve their own objectives by working within the organization. A layoff can change that confidence even when the person keeps their role.
Their response may not be an immediate resignation. They may stop volunteering, become more cautious about taking on responsibility, or quietly begin looking elsewhere.
If you are counting on people to feel grateful enough to work harder, you are building your recovery plan on an assumption you have not earned. Relief at keeping a salary can exist alongside anger, doubt, and a search for another job. Continued attendance alone does not tell you whether people still see a future with you.
Explain what makes the revised plan workable
If the cuts are meant to put the business in a stronger position, explain what is now stronger. What have they changed? Which activities will continue, and which will stop? Which assumptions does the plan depend on?
Give people something more concrete than an assurance that the difficult decisions are behind you. Where you can, explain the revised runway, the assumptions behind it, and the evidence supporting the business plan. Distinguish what you know from what remains uncertain.
Do not promise that there will never be another round unless you can stand behind that promise. Explain what would cause the plan to change and when people will hear from you again.
Reset the work as well as the headcount
A smaller team needs a clear account of what will stop, slow down, or be done differently. If every deadline and commitment remains, people may conclude that the plan depends on them absorbing the missing capacity.
If people need to take on more, say so plainly. Explain what is temporary, what support they will have, and what you will stop asking them to do.
Ask managers to identify gaps between the work expected and the capacity available. Resolve those gaps before they become everyone’s private problem. Saying that the team needs to focus means little until you name what it can stop doing.
Make room for difficult questions
People may challenge the selection process, doubt the strategy, or be angry about how a colleague was treated. You can protect individual privacy while explaining the principles behind decisions. You can also acknowledge a poor experience without pretending that the whole decision can be reversed.
You will not have every answer. Say what you know, what you do not know, and when you will return to it. When leaders leave gaps, people have to fill them with their own explanations.
Follow through after the announcement
In the book’s example, leadership brought the company together and gave a direct financial update. People asked uncomfortable questions. The meeting did not instantly restore confidence, but it gave them a clearer account of what had happened and what came next.
If you have recently made cuts, put the remaining team’s unanswered questions on the agenda of a team meeting or town hall this week. Name the work that will change. Assign someone to follow up on the questions you cannot answer yet, and give people a date.
Then return to those commitments. Check whether workloads have changed as promised, whether questions have been answered, and whether people have clearer reasons to believe the plan is workable. Regular trust measurement can help you follow changes in confidence and decide what to investigate. It does not replace those conversations or the action that follows.
You have kept these people because the business needs them. Before you ask them to commit to the new plan, make sure you have given them a reason to believe in it.