Some of the biggest companies in the country have started announcing layoffs before they know who will be laid off. The memo goes out, and then employees wait. Sometimes for weeks. Sometimes for more than a year.
If you lead a business through a restructuring, you may face the same choice: say something now with incomplete information, or say nothing until every decision is final. There’s a way to communicate early without leaving your people in limbo, and this month’s headlines show both what works and what doesn’t.
What Companies Are Saying Right Now
On October 1, Nike CEO Elliott Hill said changes to the company’s operating model “will result in fewer roles,” with decisions on affected roles coming in “2027 and beyond,” according to CNBC. Business Insider reported that Nike said it doesn’t yet know how many roles or which locations will be affected. Hill wrote, “I want to acknowledge that news like this creates uncertainty,” and promised that “we will communicate directly, act with transparency and treat people with respect.”
On October 12, Kroger CEO Greg Foran told staff the company plans to cut 3,000 corporate jobs over the next three years, CNBC reported. Then eBay CEO Jamie Iannone told employees the company is cutting 9% of its jobs, its second round of layoffs this year, in a memo obtained by Reuters and summarized by Ragan. His memo said the company’s “strategy is working.”
Overseas, National Australia Bank announced plans to cut 2,500 roles by June, including 1,500 before Christmas. Employees told ABC News that entire teams must reapply for a smaller number of their own jobs.
Each of these announcements may have made sense to investors. Employees read them differently.
Why the Waiting Is So Hard on People
When Meta said in April that it would cut 10% of its workforce the following month, Business Insider reported that internal forums filled with anxious posts, and one person described the stretch ahead as “28 days of hell.”
Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University, told CNBC that a long heads-up causes “a lot more anxiety than a sudden dropping of the hammer,” though it “does give employees more options.” She also called the more common approach, telling people on their last day, “very dysfunctional.”
Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School pointed out a practical risk for the business. Vague warnings rarely push out the people a company would choose to lose, because weaker performers have a harder time finding other work. Your best people, who can find another job quickly, are the ones most likely to leave.
That lines up with Edelman’s new Trust at Work research. Trust in direct managers fell from 79% in 2024 to 72% this year, and trust in CEOs fell from 70% to 66%, both record lows in Edelman’s tracking. According to PRovoke Media, 79% of executives said management always tells employees the truth, while only 46% of associates agreed.
That last gap is the one I’d want every leader to sit with before sending a restructuring memo. You may believe you’re being open. Your staff may be hearing something else entirely.
What to Say When You Don’t Have the Answers Yet
Early notice can be the right call. Many workers would rather know a change is coming than be blindsided. The problem comes when the early message offers nothing to hold onto. Here are some ways to give people something useful even when the details are still being worked out.
- Separate what has been decided from what hasn’t. People can handle “we don’t know yet” far better than they handle a message that sounds like it is hiding something. Say plainly which questions are still open.
- Put a date on the next update and keep it, even if the update is “no new decisions this week.” A missed update gets filled with rumor almost immediately.
- Be as specific as you honestly can. Sarah Rodehorst of Onwards HR told Business Insider that flagging the departments, locations or roles most likely to be affected helps workers judge their own risk. If some groups are clearly not affected, tell them.
- Say why the cuts are happening, and say they reflect business conditions and not people’s abilities, if that is true. Outplacement executive Laura Labovich suggested employers say exactly that and allow employees to take interviews during work hours.
- Match your tone to the news. Opening a layoff memo with “our strategy is working” may be accurate, but employees who just lost coworkers will hear it a certain way. Lead with the people affected and then explain the strategy.
Your Managers Will Carry Most of This Message
Electronic Arts offered a useful example this month. Its memo announcing the closure of the BioWare studio, as quoted by Ragan, told employees they could “speak directly with your leaders” about what the changes mean for their teams, and that a global town hall would follow in November.
Sending people to their managers is smart. Most employees will ask their own supervisor before they ever email the CEO. Ragan’s point, and I agree with it, is that this only works if those managers are briefed ahead of time with the same talking points and an FAQ. Otherwise five managers give five different answers, and the inconsistency becomes the story.
Before any announcement like this, I’d give managers the memo a day early if you can and walk them through the hard questions they’re likely to get, including what to say when they don’t know the answer. “I don’t know yet, and here’s when we’ll find out” is a perfectly good answer from a manager. A guess is not.
What Smaller Businesses Can Take From This
Most of my clients aren’t Nike or eBay. A local company with 30 employees doesn’t have investors to reassure, and it doesn’t need to announce anything to the market. That gives you an advantage. You can talk with people face to face, and you can do it before the rumor mill starts.
In a small shop, everyone notices when the owner starts closing the office door more often. Silence gets read as bad news. If changes are coming, a short, honest conversation with your team usually does less damage than weeks of whispering in the break room.
Whatever size your organization is, the promise you make in the first message is the one people will remember. Nike told its employees it would communicate directly and act with transparency. Over the next year, its people will be measuring every update against those words.
If you’re planning a restructuring or another difficult change and want help shaping what you’ll tell your team and when, schedule a consultation and we’ll work through it together.