Hard years reveal a company’s culture. Good years only describe it

Layoff announcements and AI-led restructuring have become routine news, and the distance between what companies announce and what their people live through keeps growing. Whether AI takes root or meets silent resistance will depend on trust far more than on technology.

Hardly a week passes without another company announcing job cuts or a reorganisation. The language is always the boardroom’s: efficiency, realignment, becoming AI-first. Employees, however, are listening for something quite different.

Our research suggests the anxiety is widespread, that it carries a real price, and that it has already moved from how people feel to how they act. Nor is it confined to new joiners; it cuts across seniority, tenure and years of experience. Low attrition can mask all of this. On a headcount report, someone who stays because the outside world feels too risky looks exactly like someone who stays out of conviction.

Redundancy, redeployment and AI adoption: this is where culture actually lives

Companies draft their values when business is good; they only get to prove them when it isn’t. A great workplace is not one that never restructures. It is one where people trust

that tough calls were made fairly, communicated candidly and taken only after other options had run out. Our global data makes the gap plain: at great workplaces, 84% of employees say management treats layoffs as a last resort, compared with 67% at typical workplaces.

Through any change, employees watch three moments closely:

• Before: Do leaders explain, early and in plain terms, why the change is necessary, and have they trimmed other costs first?

• During: Are departing colleagues treated with respect, and is the burden spread fairly across teams and levels?

• After: Are those who remain reskilled, redeployed and offered a credible future, or simply asked to absorb more work?

What the 2008 downturn taught us

We have been here before. When Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, the shock reached Indian factories and offices within weeks. Orders were deferred, export demand fell sharply and many firms reached for the quickest lever available: headcount. Yet some of the companies that came out strongest were not household names at the time, and they chose differently.

Companies cannot avoid hard choices. What will set them apart is the sequencing and candour. Protecting capability, explaining their rationale, and asking their people to share the burden before asking anyone to leave. That is exactly the playbook the AI transition now demands.

A booming market can make any company look like a great workplace. The real measure is whether your people still believe in you once the restructuring is over.

AI can be bought. The trust that makes it work cannot.

AI programmes stall when employees fear the tools, keep their work hidden from them or quietly check out. This is a commercial point, not a sentimental one: the return on any AI investment rests on people choosing to use it well.

Leave the door open and plan beyond the exit

What separates great workplaces is honesty about change, and that honesty can be measured.

Terms such as ‘rightsizing’ and ‘realignment’ may comfort a board, but employees translate them in seconds. Euphemism deepens the trust deficit; straight talk narrows it.

A layoff need not be the end of the relationship between employees and the organisations. Workplaces can often help departing employees find their next role in the career journey via leadership connections and organisational networks. Furthermore, building initiatives like alumni networks, periodic check-ins sessions and continued access to open opportunities can keep former workforce employees to stay connected to the organisation. This support in return will also help employees understand the human side of leadership too, while maintaining a clear path for strong talent to return when demand recovers for business.

Organisations can also help departing employees secure new roles through their leaders’ and former colleagues’ networks and people managers can also maintain relationships with former employees through leadership connections and alumni networks, creating opportunities to rehire experienced talent when business needs change.

AI will reshape jobs, and some will disappear. That is the reality across industries, and our research shows four in ten employees already expect it. Pretending otherwise protects

no one. What people will remember is whether their leaders were truthful early, treated those who left with dignity, and gave those who stayed a genuine way forward.

In 2008, the companies that kept faith with their people left the downturn with a head start. The AI transition will reward the same instinct.

(The author is CEO, Great Place to Work India. Views are personal.)