Most restructures start with a spreadsheet. The budget doesn’t work, so someone opens the org chart and starts looking for savings. It feels decisive, but it’s usually how businesses end up smaller and no better shaped than before.
The restructures that work start with a different question: what is this business becoming, and what structure does that need? A company moving from a growth phase into steady operations needs different roles, different leaders and different ownership than the one that got it there. If you only cut, you keep yesterday’s structure at a discount.
Design principles beat line-by-line cuts
Before touching a single role, agree the principles the new structure has to serve. In my experience the ones that matter most are these. Every team needs clearly defined inputs and deliverables, because accountability follows clarity. Anything customers feel directly should have a single owner, not three departments sharing the blame. And be honest about the specialist trap: a business full of narrow specialists ends up with headcount dictated by minimum cover in every silo, so cross-training and broader roles are often worth more than any individual saving.
Give people something to challenge, not a blank page
A leadership team asked to design a structure from scratch will circle for weeks. A draft prepared in advance, presented as exactly that, changes the dynamic completely. People can react, challenge and improve, and a facilitated day can move from context to role-by-role decisions before everyone goes home. Two disciplines make it work: a decision log, so agreements stay agreed, and a parked list, so important questions that belong to another day don’t derail this one.
The legal spine is not optional
If you’re proposing 20 or more redundancies at a single site within 90 days, collective consultation rules apply, and they have teeth. Since April 2026 the penalty for getting consultation wrong is up to 180 days’ pay per affected employee, double what it used to be. And the single-site test is expected to widen from 2027, so more restructures will be caught by these rules, not fewer.
The essentials: file form HR1 with the government before any notice of dismissal is issued, and at least 30 days before the first dismissal takes effect for 20 to 99 proposed redundancies, or 45 days for 100 or more. Consultation must begin in good time against that same clock, and where there is no recognised union, employee representatives need to be elected before it starts. Selection matters just as much. Pools should be defined carefully, criteria must be objective and measurable, and scoring needs moderation so different managers apply it consistently. Run an equality impact review on the outcome, offer suitable alternative roles where they exist (with the four-week statutory trial period that goes with them), and give people a genuine route to appeal. Document all of it.
One more thing consultation is not: information-giving with a deadline. Managers need to be genuinely open to feedback, because a consultation that was never really a conversation is exactly what tribunals look for.
Don’t forget the people staying
Communication plans tend to focus on the people at risk, rightly. But the colleagues watching from the sidelines are the ones you’re asking to carry the business forward, and they will remember how their friends were treated. Sequence announcements carefully, be honest about what is and isn’t decided, and give the people staying a reason to believe in what comes next.
Restructures are hard, and they should be. Done properly, once, they set a business up for its next chapter. Done badly, you get to do them again, with less trust and a bigger bill.
Statutory references correct as at July 2026 and apply in England, Scotland and Wales.