When I spoke to workplace mediator Lizanne Keenan about handling redundancy conversations, she shared a powerful practical suggestion: once you’ve worked through the checklist, physically move the piece of paper to one side and give the person your full attention.
Lizanne spent over 20 years working in HR before becoming a mediator. She’s delivered redundancies and been on the receiving end herself and now helps HR leaders and managers resolve workplace conflict. In this episode of Redundancy Matters, we talked about how the skills she uses in mediation can help during redundancy meetings, particularly when emotions come up and the conversation doesn’t go as expected.
What can mediation teach us about handling redundancy conversations?
Open questions, active listening and giving someone time to speak are useful skills in a redundancy meeting. They help you understand what’s going on for the individual, including things you may know very little about outside work.
Lizanne explained what she means by listening: “You’re not thinking about an answer to give them. You’re not thinking about what you’re having for tea tonight.”
Work is busy and life is busy. In everyday conversations we’re often listening with the intent to respond, already thinking about the answer while the other person is still speaking. These meetings need something different.
In my experience, people can tell when they’re the most important person in your world for the next 20 minutes. That connection is there because you’re completely present with them.
Lizanne offered a simple way to show you’ve heard: repeat back what someone has said in a summary. “They know you’ve been listening.”
You don’t have to take on someone’s difficulties or find the perfect response. You can listen, check your understanding and let them explain what this means for them. I’ve written about supporting employees through redundancy with empathy if you’d like to spend more time on that.
Using a checklist without losing the connection
There are things that need to be said in a redundancy meeting and a checklist helps make sure everyone receives the information they need. How you use it can make a difference to the conversation.
Lizanne described explaining the formality, working through the checklist and then moving it aside. Her suggested words were: “I’m here for you, 100%. Now, talk to me. What can I do to support you through this?”
I thought that was powerful. Something as simple as putting the paper down can change how the meeting feels. You’re looking at the person and giving them the opportunity to talk about what’s happening for them.
She described the unusual experience of someone thanking you after you’ve delivered such difficult news. In her experience, they’re thanking you because you made the meeting as comfortable as possible and were there for them.
Allow time for that exchange alongside the information you need to cover. My conversation with HR copywriter Katie Murray also covered how checklists can support a meeting without taking it over.
The meeting starts before someone sits down
Booking rooms was probably one of the hardest parts when I was managing redundancies. You couldn’t tell people why you needed four rooms all day on a particular Wednesday and sometimes you ended up with spaces that weren’t ideal.
Lizanne encouraged people to think carefully about the setting: “Don’t have your meetings in a room where there’s a large glass window along the side that people, like a goldfish bowl, that people can see right into.”
I know how much the route to and from that room can matter. When I was going through redundancy on maternity leave, there was an office just inside the foyer that would have been ideal. Instead, my meeting was where everyone else was having theirs, through the open-plan office.
I hadn’t been back since going on maternity leave. Walking through wasn’t so bad but walking back out was horrendous. That was 15 years ago and I can still remember it vividly.
When you’re arranging meetings, consider:
- Whether people outside the room can see someone becoming upset.
- How the chairs and table are arranged and whether the setting feels comfortable.
- Whether phones and other interruptions can be put aside.
- The route someone will need to take afterwards, including whether they’ll have to walk past colleagues.
If the available room isn’t suitable, have the confidence to say so and look at another option. Lizanne’s advice was to put yourself in the individual’s shoes. There’s already a huge amount going on for them before they reach the room.
How do you respond when someone becomes emotional?
Give them time, listen and be prepared to pause. You can’t predict someone’s response and you don’t need to rush to fill the silence or make the feeling go away.
Lizanne’s top tip on managing emotions during redundancy was: “Don’t be afraid of emotion.”
You might think you know someone well but you don’t know everything that’s happening in their life or what happened in the moments before the meeting. We talked about how to have a redundancy conversation when you don’t know how someone will react. Managers need to feel prepared for emotion because that’s often what throws people off course.
When someone is crying
Lizanne was clear about the urge to step in and solve things: “You’re not there to fix their problems. And there is a knee-jerk reaction from a lot of people that see emotions as, ‘I’m gonna fix this.’”
She explained that this may be the first opportunity someone has had to release those feelings. If they feel comfortable enough to share them with you, allow them the time.
As a coach, I’ve had to learn to be comfortable with silence. At first, I wanted to jump in and fix the problem too. If you fill the gap with a question, you can take the person down a different path before they’ve said what they wanted to say.
Lizanne’s advice was to stay present, offer a tissue if needed and let the person indicate when they’re ready to continue.
When the emotion comes out as anger
Not everyone is tearful. Lizanne reminded me, “We’ve got to remember that anger is also an emotion.”
Someone may need to explain what’s upsetting or frustrating them. Listen to what they’re saying and consider whether a break would help reset the conversation.
In mediation, Lizanne uses breaks to give people time to stop and reflect. She suggested offering a tea or coffee and then coming back together. The pause gives them a moment away from the conversation before continuing.
You need time available for these responses. She advised, “If you’re looking at timings of back-to-back-to-back meetings, build in a buffer because you don’t know what you’re going to be presented with.”
An extra ten minutes may be what that person needs. A schedule with no room between meetings makes it much harder to give them that time.
When the information isn't going in
Someone who isn’t visibly upset may still be overwhelmed. I don’t remember much beyond being told my role was at risk of redundancy, even though I’d worked in HR and knew the process.
Lizanne suggested acknowledging that you may be sharing information that isn’t landing and reassuring the person that they can ask you to go over it again later.
Some of the approaches we discussed were:
- Offer a break when there is too much to take in.
- Allow questions without expecting someone to think of them all immediately.
- Make yourself available afterwards, when they’ve had time to reflect.
She explained, “They’ll go away and they might go, ‘I wish I said this. I wish I asked this question.’ It’s making yourself accessible after that meeting has taken place.”
The conversations with those who stay
Supporting remaining employees after redundancy needs time in the plan too. Someone may have been at risk themselves, watched a friend leave and now be trying to make sense of staying.
Lizanne has seen guilt, assumptions about decisions and fear of further redundancies affect relationships. Managers can be exhausted after delivering difficult news and assume that someone whose job is safe is okay.
You won’t be able to share everything but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a conversation. Lizanne put it simply: “It’s okay to say, ‘I can’t share that information.’”
In her mediation work, she sees situations where frustrations have grown and relationships have broken down before she’s called in. Giving people time to talk earlier lets you hear what’s worrying them, even when you can’t answer every question.
I’d include those conversations in the consultation plan. Otherwise, it’s easy to move straight into working out how to do the same work with fewer people and forget that colleagues are still processing what’s happened.
If you’re managing redundancies and would like practical guidance, you can sign up for our free monthly Lunch and Learn Redundancy Webinar, where we discuss questions including how to prepare line managers for consultation meetings.
About the Guest
Lizanne Keenan is a workplace mediator with over 20 years’ previous experience in HR. She supports organisations with workplace conflict, offers proactive mediation and delivers public and in-house mediation training. You can find out more about her work at LK Mediation Services.
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