How to Tell Someone They're Being Made Redundant

The calendar invitation is bland: “Catch-up.” But you put it in their diary, not the other way around, and you booked a room nobody ever uses. You walk there now, past the hum of the server room, your own breathing loud in your ears. On the table is a glass of water, a box of tissues, and a printed script from HR. You know the first line by heart, but you’re already wondering what you’ll do if they interrupt, if they get angry, or worse, if they just stare at you, silent. Your mind is a frantic search engine, typing out the same query again and again: “how to handle an employee’s emotional reaction” as you wait for the sound of their footsteps.

This isn’t just a difficult conversation. It’s a structurally impossible one. You are being asked to deliver two contradictory messages at the same time: “Your contribution was valued” and “Your role is no longer necessary.” You are tasked with being both the compassionate human being and the agent of a corporate decision. This creates a double bind, a conversational trap where any move you make feels wrong. If you’re too soft, you create confusion and false hope. If you’re too direct, you feel like a monster. The reason this feels so impossible is because, in a way, it is. You’re holding two realities at once, and the person across from you is about to have their own reality turned upside down.

What’s Actually Going On Here

The core of the problem isn’t your delivery or their reaction; it’s the message itself. The brain struggles to process contradictory information, especially under stress. When an employee hears, “You’re an excellent performer, but we’re eliminating your position,” their mind doesn’t calmly accept both facts. Instead, it scrambles for a story that makes sense. Usually, that story is, “They’re lying. It is about my performance.”

This is a direct result of the mixed message. The organisation has made a business decision, but it wants the exit to be humane. It hands you, the manager, the job of representing both the cold calculus and the warm culture. You become the focal point for this contradiction.

This pattern is stabilised by the system itself. The legal team provides a script designed to minimise risk, often stripping it of direct language. HR provides guidance on being supportive, which can feel at odds with the legal script. You are caught in the middle, trying to serve two masters while a human being in front of you is processing a professional trauma. The employee isn’t just reacting to you; they’re reacting to the incoherence of the message you’ve been forced to deliver. They feel the disconnect between the words (“we value you”) and the action (a security guard waiting to walk them out).

What People Usually Try (and Why It Backfires)

When faced with this impossible task, we reach for familiar tools. We think we are being kind or professional, but we often end up making the situation murkier and more painful.

• The Soft Opening. You start with five minutes of small talk or vague preamble.

  • How it sounds: “Thanks for coming in. So, as you know, it’s been a challenging quarter for the business, and we’ve had to look at our strategic priorities…”
  • Why it backfires: This creates a slow-building dread. The other person knows something is wrong but has to sit through a corporate monologue before the axe falls. It feels disingenuous and prolongs the anxiety.

• The Business-Case Defence. You come armed with charts and figures to justify the decision.

  • How it sounds: “The board reviewed the P&L for our division, and with the new focus on the enterprise platform, the ROI on your team’s projects just wasn’t meeting targets.”
  • Why it backfires: In this moment, the global business strategy is completely irrelevant to the person whose life is being upended. It sounds defensive, as if you’re trying to convince yourself. It makes the employee feel like a line item on a spreadsheet, not a person.

• Managing Their Emotions. You see tears or anger and your first instinct is to stop it.

  • How it sounds: “Now, let’s not get upset,” or “I know it’s hard, but it’s going to be okay.”
  • Why it backfires: You are not responsible for their feelings, but you are responsible for how you treat them. Trying to manage their emotional reaction is about making yourself more comfortable. It sends the message that their feelings are inappropriate, which only adds a layer of shame to their distress.

A Different Position to Take

The way out of this trap is not a better script, but a different position. You must abandon the goal of making the news feel okay. It will not feel okay. You cannot soften a sharp edge. Your job is not to be their friend, their therapist, or their career coach in that moment. Your sole responsibility is to be the clear, dignified bearer of a difficult truth.

Let that sink in. Your job is clarity. Not comfort.

This means letting go of the need to be liked. It means accepting that for a short period, you will be the source of someone’s pain. It means resisting the urge to fix it, to explain it away, or to absorb their anger. You are there to deliver a message from the business to the employee. Your role is temporary, functional, and finite. You hold the container for a terrible moment, and your only job is to keep that container from shattering.

When you adopt this position, your focus shifts. You stop worrying about finding the perfect words to make them feel better and start focusing on the few, clear words that will help them understand what is happening. You become a stable point in a chaotic moment.

Moves That Fit This Position

The moves that come from this position are about directness, dignity, and creating space. These are not a full script, but illustrations of how this positioning translates into specific actions.

• The Direct Frame. Start the meeting by signalling its purpose. No small talk.

  • The Move: “Thanks for joining me. I’m afraid I have some difficult news to share.”
  • What it does: It immediately and respectfully sets the tone. It eliminates the anxiety of a vague preamble and allows the person to brace for impact.

• The Clean Delivery. State the core message clearly and concisely, without euphemisms.

  • The Move: “The company is eliminating a number of roles, and your position is one of them. This means your employment here is ending, effective today.”
  • What it does: It removes all ambiguity. Words like “let go,” “downsizing,” or “restructuring” are corporate jargon. “Your position is being eliminated” is an undeniable fact. This clarity is a form of kindness, as it prevents the confusion that breeds false hope.

• Holding the Silence. After delivering the news, stop talking.

  • The Move: Say the core message, then close your mouth. Count to ten in your head. Let the silence hang in the air.
  • What it does: This is the most difficult and most powerful move. It gives the other person a moment to process a world-altering piece of information. Rushing to fill the silence with explanations about severance or next steps is about managing your own discomfort, not their need.

• Naming the Reality. Observe, don’t interpret, their reaction.

  • The Move: Instead of “don’t be angry,” say, “I can see this has made you angry.” Instead of “it’s going to be okay,” say, “I realise this is a shock.”
  • What it does: It validates their experience without trying to fix it. You are simply acknowledging the truth of the room. This shows you are still present with them as a human, even while performing your functional role.