Because redundancy is a business decision — but for the person receiving the news, it can feel deeply personal.
Redundancy may be necessary for an organisation, but for the employee it can mean much more than losing a job.
Work can provide income, identity, routine, friendships, confidence, purpose, status, belonging and security. When a role disappears, many of these can suddenly feel threatened too.
Alongside practical worries about money and finding another job may come shock, anger, anxiety, embarrassment, loss of confidence or fear about the future.
COS Corporate – Workforce Wellbeing provides independent, compassionate support to help employees navigate that transition.
Supporting the person — not managing the redundancy
We are not HR, employment lawyers or representatives of the organisation’s redundancy process.
Our role is to support the person experiencing it.
Employees can have a confidential space to process what has happened, manage anxiety and uncertainty, explore the impact on confidence and self-esteem, think about conversations with family and begin looking towards what comes next.
Where practical financial, legal or career advice is needed, we can also help employees identify appropriate sources of specialist support rather than pretending counselling can answer every question.
Support at the point it matters
Support can be made available around the time redundancy is announced, during consultation or notice periods, and afterwards if required.
Having an independent professional available can be particularly valuable following a difficult meeting, when an employee may be trying to absorb a large amount of information while also managing a strong emotional reaction.
Sometimes the most important message an organisation can give is:
“This decision may be necessary, but your wellbeing still matters to us.”
What about the people who remain?
Redundancy affects more than those leaving.
Remaining employees may experience guilt, uncertainty, increased workloads, reduced morale or anxiety about whether their own role could be next. Managers may also find themselves delivering difficult news to people they have worked alongside for years.
COS can provide additional counselling and wellbeing support for remaining employees and managers where appropriate, helping organisations manage the wider human impact of change.
Confidential and independent
Although the employer funds the service, the employee remains our client.
Individual counselling conversations are confidential within the normal limits of counselling confidentiality. We do not report personal disclosures or counselling content back to management.
This independence gives employees somewhere they can speak openly without worrying that what they say will become part of the redundancy process.
Helping people look forward
Compassionate support is not about forced positivity or immediately telling someone to “see this as an opportunity”.
It is about acknowledging what has been lost, helping the person regain their footing and, when they are ready, beginning to consider what comes next.
Handled well, redundancy can still be an extremely difficult experience — but it does not have to be an unnecessarily damaging one.
You may not be able to save every role. You can make sure the person losing theirs isn’t forgotten in the process.
COS Corporate – Workforce Wellbeing
Compassionate, confidential support through redundancy and change.