Eight Top Tips for Planning a Successful Restructuring Project from an HR Project Manager's Perspective.
- 22 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Restructuring projects often bring uncertainty and have the potential to significantly impact employee engagement and productivity.
One of the most critical phases that is often overlooked is the planning stage, which sets the foundation for a calm start to what is often a stressful project. Spending too little time in the planning phase can lead to confusion, resistance, and costly delays later on. This post shares eight practical tips to help HR Directors and Managers avoid the common restructuring project pitfalls.
Tip 1 - Understand the Scope and Objectives Clearly
Before any action is taken, clarify the purpose of the restructure. Is it to reduce costs, improve efficiency, or realign roles with new business goals? Defining clear objectives helps avoid scope creep and conflicting priorities.
Engage key stakeholders early to gather input and align expectations.
Document the goals in measurable terms, such as reducing headcount by 10% or consolidating departments within six months.
Identify constraints like budget limits, legal requirements, and timelines.
Without a clear scope, the project risks growing in size, without the budget or resources needed to support any additional activity and failing to deliver on its promises.
With a clear scope, you can manage any requests to change what the project is being asked to deliver in a calm and controlled manner. It also helps you understand the impact of changes on the project benefits. One of the key risks of scope creep within a redundancy and restructuring project is that any change is likely to impact the projected cost savings. Without tight control, it's all too easy to end up with a new structure that is costing more than the old one.
Tip 2 - Conduct a Thorough Impact Analysis
The impact analysis is vital to helping you understand how much change is required and the cost of that change. Restructuring by its nature is a costly business, and not just in terms of redundancy payments and resources to deliver it successfully. It can also cost your employee engagement, brand reputation and ability to recruit, particularly if it is handled badly.
The impact analysis will also help you:
Map out which roles, teams, and locations will be affected.
Assess the potential impact on employee morale, workload distribution, and customer service.
Consider legal and compliance risks, especially around redundancies and contracts.
Understand any systems or process changes that might be needed to support any new structures and ways of working.
Taking the time to fully understand the impact up front will help you avoid nasty surprises. It will also reduce the stress of having to solve problems that could have been avoided while you attempt to implement the changes.
Tip 3 - Develop a Detailed Communications Plan
The level of communication required during a restructure is often underestimated.
One issue that can crop up is the assumption that everyone can access and read emails. Depending on your target audience, this assumption can end up costing you. A good communications plan won't rely on just one type of communication; it will have a mix of briefings, meetings, intranet updates, posters and emails that have been chosen to ensure as many people hear the message as possible.
Here are some quick tips on creating a detailed communications plan:
Create a timeline for communication activities aligned with project milestones.
Tailor messages for different audiences.
Use multiple channels such as emails, meetings, FAQs, and intranet updates.
Train managers to deliver messages consistently and handle employee concerns empathetically.
Create a way for employees to submit questions directly to the HR team, alongside asking their line manager.
A final tip is chunking the communications into manageable pieces. You may have to provide a pack of information to start the employee consultation, but consider ways of repeating elements of the message in smaller chunks after the reality of the situation has sunk in.
Tip 4 - Plan for Employee Support and Transition
Employees are at the heart of any restructuring project. Planning support mechanisms at the start shows that even though the situation is tricky that you are still committed to supporting those who are impacted and those who aren't.
Here's some ideas of what you might want to consider:
Remind employees of the details of any employee assistance programmes, particularly if they include counselling. Any restructuring creates a level of uncertainty and anxiety, so knowing where to access support is helpful.
If you have mental health first aiders, you might want to consider how you are going to brief them on the proposals and what it might mean for their role.
Consider what support you are going to provide to anyone who is being made redundant. If you have a budget for outplacement services that's great; if you don't there's still lots you can do such as:
Using your HR/Recruitment team to support with CV writing or interview skills workshops.
Being clear on providing time off to find alternative work.
Encouraging open conversations about finding a new role and what support the employee might need.
Providing recommendations on LinkedIn (if appropriate).
Managing the transition empathetically also shows the remaining employees that you do care about their colleagues and have done your best to support them, even through the challenges of redundancy.
Tip 5 - Cleanse Your Employee Data Early
Your employee data will be vital to a smooth redundancy process. It is often one of the most challenging aspects of a restructure, usually because either the Payroll and HR data don't match up or the data hasn't been kept up to date.
Pulling your employee data early and understanding how accurate it is will save you dealing with multiple queries during the employee consultation. It is easier to investigate anomalies when you don't have the added pressure of the consultation process being in full swing.
Accurate data will also be vital to ensure a fair redundancy selection process, particularly if you are relying on absence or training records. Making sure these records are complete and accurate will help avoid the risk of appeals or tribunal claims around unfair selection.
The final tip is to allow sufficient time in the project plan to carry out the data cleanse activity, it is likely to take longer than you think.
Tip 6 - Anticipate and Manage Resistance
Resistance is natural during restructuring. Assessing the impact on the various teams will help you identify where you are likely to encounter the most resistance, and understanding this means you can:
Tailor your communications to help overcome the concerns and challenges where possible.
Identify key influencers who may be able to help with the communications and overcoming resistance.
Understand which departments are most heavily impacted and plan for any additional support for employees and any impact on service or productivity.
Look at ways to involve teams in the change, for example, with process design or providing feedback on new systems and ways of working.
Tip 7 - Set Realistic Timelines and Milestones
Overambitious schedules increase pressure and increase the risk of costly mistakes. If your restructure looks as if it will result in more than 20 redundancies, collective consultation will apply and there are legal timelines you will need to consider.
If collective consultation doesn't apply, your timeline will still need to be governed by demonstrating you have followed a reasonable consultation process. The process will need to give the employee time to consider what is happening and raise any counter proposals for consideration.
Failure to consult can be costly; there is an award of 90 days pay currently, which is set to double to 180 days pay in 2027 with the recent changes to the Employment Rights Bill.
Our top tips on setting a realistic timeline are to:
Understand how many employees need consultation meetings.
Calculate how much line manager and HR support time that requires.
Assess line manager and HR capacity to deliver the consultation meetings bearing in mind they will have business as usual to deliver, and it won't be business as usual.
Allow an element of buffer time e.g. if you think all consultations will be complete in four weeks add a week or two of contingency to allow for holidays/absence.
Consider phasing the approach and/or implementation.
Tip 8 - Monitor and Adjust the Plan Continuously
Anyone who has ever managed a restructuring project knows it rarely goes according to plan A, you are usually on at least plan G by the time you finish.
Using project management tools to track tasks, deadlines, decisions and risks will help you react to unforeseen circumstances or changes that come out of the consultation process. With a structured plan you should be able to quickly assess the impact of any delays or changes.
Listening to the project team and stakeholders feedback as you progress through the restructuring project will also help you highlight issues early and plan to mitigate them before they become bigger problems.
Monitoring the plan also allows you to provide regular updates to the exec and leadership teams, showing you have the project under control and giving them confidence and clarity on when their support is or isn't needed.
Conclusion: Plan Well, Lead Calmly and Deliver With Confidence
A successful restructuring project doesn't start with consultation meetings; it starts with careful, strategic planning.
When you invest time at the start of your project to define the scope, assess the impact, cleanse employee data, create a detailed communications plan and set a realistic timeline, you dramatically reduce the legal risk, protect employee engagement and protect the projected cost savings.
We know this because we have seen both versions of a restructuring project. Ones where we stepped in just before the announcement was due to discover the planning was rushed, the data was dirty, the impact assessment wasn't detailed enough, and the communications plan non existent.
We've also supported complex organisation design and restructuring projects where structured planning created calm from the outset. The time invested upfront meant the implementation was smoother and quicker, and leaders and stakeholders felt confident in the project delivery.
The key difference between a restructure that damages morale and company reputation and one that strengthens an organisation and leadership credibility lies in the quality of the planning.
We hope that you have found this blog useful and that it has given you the tips you needed to avoid some of the common pitfalls in a restructuring project. If you've enjoyed reading it and you'd like to get more content like it directly to your inbox, sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter here.
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The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this blog are not intended to amount to advice, and you should not rely on any of the contents of this blog. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this blog. Snow Limits Consulting Limited disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this blog.