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RTO, layoffs, and restructuring: what workplace shifts reveal about leadership


As organizations continue to navigate layoffs, return to office expectations, and ongoing shifts in how work gets done, leaders across industries are being tested in new ways. In this piece, REACH Women’s Network Board of Director / Member Tiffany Tate explores what it means to lead in the future of work and what is at stake for women at work, C‑suite leaders, and HR professionals. Drawing on current workforce trends and leadership realities, Tiffany offers a practical perspective on how leaders at every level can navigate change without losing momentum or the women leaders they are counting on. 



For industry leaders today, change is no longer an exception or a special event on the calendar; it is the operating system we move about in. Layoffs, restructures, return to office mandates, and evolving workplace culture norms are embedded in how organizations function. The question is not if shifts will happen, but how leaders will respond and compassionately support people as they move through them.


Employees and organizational stakeholders may hear about policy decisions and company updates, but they remember the tone and transparency associated with them most. The gap between what is decided and how it is handled is where trust is either built or lost. In today’s workplace, trust is one of the most valuable forms of leadership capital and one of the easiest to erode during periods of significant change (Gallup, 2025).


When change is mishandled, the impact shows up early

Recent data show that Black women in the US experienced one of the sharpest employment declines of any group in 2025. The employment‑to‑population ratio for this demographic fell to 55.7 percent, and their labor force participation rate dropped from 60.6 percent in 2024 to 59.7 percent in 2025, while unemployment rose from 5.8 percent to 6.7 percent (Economic Policy Institute, 2026). This represents a weakening job market for Black women that is out of step with other groups, and reflects losses that began in 2024 and rapidly accelerated afterward (Economic Policy Institute, 2026).


This is not just a workplace statistic; it is an early warning signal that trust in organizations and the broader economy is fraying in one of the most critical segments of the workforce. Black women, and mid‑career women more broadly, often feel the strain of organizational shifts first and most acutely. When communication is unclear or when decisions are justified with vague language, forced exits and disengagement usually begin at the margins and are often among those who have been carrying disproportionate responsibility in the labor market (Economic Policy Institute, 2026; McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025).


Over time, those patterns rarely stay contained to one demographic. Sometimes referred to as the “canary in the coalmine effect,” these early indicators surface as broader retention challenges, leadership pipeline gaps, and weakened culture for all working people. Organizations that dismiss these early signals often find themselves managing a much larger trust and talent deficit later (McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025).


Client story: supporting a company through a RIF

A national organization reached out to my team shortly before announcing a significant reduction in force (RIF). On paper, the plan was precise: a clear target for cost savings, a list of roles affected, and a tightly timed communication schedule and staggered set of layoffs. What they did not have was a strategy for how managers would guide their teams through the announcement, or a clear go forward approach for supporting professionals across the organization with a plan for what’s next.


In our work together, we slowed the process just enough to build that strategy. We created manager talking points that translated corporate language into plain, honest terms and prepared leaders for the emotional questions they would face. Those questions came not only from people directly impacted who asked “Why me?” but also from those who remained and wondered “Am I next?” We also helped leaders map out their first 30 days after the announcement: one‑on‑ones, team meetings, and check‑ins with their most vulnerable talent segments, including Black women and early to mid-career employees who had already been signaling burnout.


When the RIF was announced, the news was still difficult. People were still hurt, disappointed, and unsure of what was next. However, employees reported that leaders were more present, professionals were more prepared, and the rationale felt clearer, even when they did not agree with every decision. Six months later, the firm’s turnover included a return for some of the population, and reports of new opportunities elsewhere for another segment. Compared to previous RIF cycles, internal engagement surveys showed higher confidence in organization communication compared with past change management initiatives. The difference was not the RIF process itself; it was the way leaders showed up in the moments that followed to do right by people while protecting their employer brand.


Forced RTO is rarely about location. It is about leadership.

Return to office expectations have become one of the most visible pressure points for working professionals in recent years. Public debate often centers on flexibility versus rigidity and surveillance,, but underneath that conversation sits a deeper issue: manager capability and trust.


The 2025 Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In, the largest study on the state of women in corporate America, found that only about half of companies are prioritizing women’s career advancement, and commitment to gender diversity is trending down (McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025). At the same time, about one in four companies now offer fewer remote and hybrid work options, and almost one in six have scaled back women‑focused career development programs (McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025). Across studies, employee engagement and sentiment are strongly tied to role clarity, meaningful expectations, and manager effectiveness, not simply physical location (McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025; Gallup, 2025).


When organizations use physical presence as a proxy for performance, they reveal limits in their own leadership effectiveness. They signal that they lack confidence in their ability to set clear goals, coach for performance, and hold people accountable where the work actually happens. It is a long myth that physical proximity or in-person convenings change the flow of work when thoughtful design is not part of the conversation. Experienced contributors, particularly women who have built careers navigating competing demands, notice the signals and make decisions accordingly (McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025).


For many women leaders and women building their businesses, forced RTO policies prompt a straightforward question: Is this environment built for growth, or for control? The answer likely shapes whether they lean in, step back, or decide to build a career elsewhere.


Client story: leading a distributed team through change

Shortly after a new hybrid policy was rolled out, a technology organization asked us to work with a senior director whose team was spread across three time zones. On paper, the policy looked flexible. In practice, her team was struggling with uneven visibility, meeting overload, and growing resentment between those who were mostly in an office and those who were mostly remote.


We started by helping her shift from monitoring activity to clarifying outcomes. Together, we worked with the team to create a simple charter: shared hours for collaboration, norms for how decisions would be documented, and agreements about how to run meetings so remote colleagues were not an afterthought. We also asked her to look closely at who was quietly holding the team together, including a mid‑career woman who was informally mentoring new hires and running the group chat that everyone relied on in the margins of synchronous meetings.


Over the next quarter, the director reduced standing meetings, increased structure and shifted her approach to one‑on‑ones, and used their team charter as a tool to reset expectations and share ownership of shared outcomes among the group. Engagement scores on the team’s internal survey improved, and the team reported clearer expectations and more predictable schedules against their largest impact goals, which helped them manage caregiving and other responsibilities (Gallup, 2025). The hybrid policy has not changed. What changed was the way the team agreed to work and communicate together, and the way their leader showed up for people she could not see in an office every day.


Leading across generations requires preparedness

Today’s workplace spans multiple generations with different lived experiences, expectations of stability, and definitions of loyalty and success at work. The same layoff announcement or restructuring memo can land as “decisive” to one group of employees and “destabilizing” to another. What some interpret as a commitment to protect the organization, others experience this as a failure to protect people.


Strong leadership during transition requires more than a single all‑hands email or Zoom. It calls for leaders who can explain why change is happening in practical, jargon‑free terms. It also requires advance preparation so managers have clear messages, answers to likely questions, and realistic next steps before announcements go out. Just as important, leaders must follow up with those who remain after employees exit to set expectations and provide clarity for what’s ahead.


When leaders proactively equip managers to lead across different generational expectations and among rapid change, they reduce misinformation and minimize avoidable harm. They also create conditions for teams to re‑engage more quickly and continue performing well (Gallup, 2025).


Compassionate transitions are strategic, not sentimental

Layoffs and restructuring are part of business cycles. The issue is not whether they occur; it is whether leaders treat them as purely administrative or financial exercises, or as catalysts for effective leadership. When workforce reductions are handled as a checklist of legal reviews and administrative tasks, leaders often underestimate their long‑term impact on trust, employer brand, and performance (Gallup, 2025).


Exit experiences shape how alumni talk about the organization and how confidently recruiters can attract talent. They also shape how the remaining team interprets what will be expected of them going forward. In periods of uncertainty, employees look for evidence of whether leaders can be both decisive and humane.


Organizations that approach transitions with thoughtful process, clear communication, and intentional support tend to see stronger outcomes (Gallup, 2025). That often looks like preparing managers to lead difficult conversations with clarity and empathy, communicating directly and honestly even when not every detail is finalized, providing transition resources such as outplacement and career coaching, and checking in with remaining teams to clarify priorities while acknowledging the emotional impact.


Teams that feel informed and respected are less likely to disengage during transition. Organizations that invest in this approach protect both employee performance and employer brand reputation (Gallup, 2025).


Client story: coaching leaders at scale after a restructure

After a major restructuring, a national organization approached our firm with an urgent challenge: their org chart was updated, but their leaders were not. Managers were stepping into expanded roles overnight, overseeing larger teams and leading hybrid work arrangements with little support. Many of them had inherited employees who had just watched some of their colleagues exit abruptly. Employee engagement scores were slipping, and turnover among mid‑career professionals was quietly rising.


We designed a leadership coaching program that combined targeted workshops with access to individual leadership coaching. In the first phase, we focused on the basics of leading through uncertainty: how to communicate when you do not have every answer, how to acknowledge loss without making promises you cannot keep, and how to re‑establish role clarity and performance expectations as a new workplace culture is defined. In the second phase, we worked with leaders to identify who in their teams might be carrying an invisible load, often Black women and mid‑career women on whom informal mentoring, ERG leadership, and cultural “glue” work had fallen for years with limited acknowledgement or added pay.


As leaders practiced having more honest one‑on‑ones, naming tradeoffs, and sharing decision‑making criteria, employees reported higher levels of trust and understanding, even in the midst of ongoing change. Over the next two quarters, internal data showed improved manager effectiveness scores and a slowing of voluntary turnover. The restructuring itself was a catalyst for structural change, but what really needed to change to expand leadership capacity and manager effectiveness was how leaders showed up, both individually and collectively, in the weeks and months that followed.


What this means for women leaders and women‑led businesses

Women leaders and founders often sit at the crossroads of many of the workforce dynamics I’ve explored in this piece. Some are tasked with leading teams through uncertainty while protecting their own personal capacity. Others are evaluating whether to stay in roles inside organizations that are restructuring around them, or to take their skills elsewhere and build something of their own.


How transitions are handled shapes more than immediate headcount or quarterly results. It shapes whether high‑capability women see a path to growth where they are, and whether Black women and other women of color experience leadership as a place of possibility or as a repeated reminder that their contributions are expendable (Economic Policy Institute, 2026; McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025). For women‑led businesses, it also influences which organizations they choose to partner with, consult for, or supply talent to in the future.


Leading well requires clarity and the ability to hold people accountable while still treating them with respect and dignity. It also requires the courage to name what is actually happening within an organization for yourself, for your team, and for your organization. That balance is not always easy, but in the future of work, it is not optional.


The future of work will reward leaders who manage change well

Organizations that sustain performance over time will not be the ones that avoided disruption. They will be the ones that built the capacity to move through disruption with resilience, transparency, and intention (Gallup, 2025). How leaders manage RTO expectations, layoffs, and restructuring will influence not only who stays and who leaves, but also how the organization is perceived by current employees, future candidates, and the broader market (McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2025; Gallup, 2025).


As a leader, consider auditing one recent change you led. Ask a cross‑section of employees (colleagues or direct reports) how it landed, what felt clear, what felt confusing, and what they needed from you that they did not receive. Then choose one upcoming decision and plan not just the what of the change, but the how: who needs to be prepared, which questions are most likely to surface, and how you will communicate with those most affected. Folding feedback loops into your regular work practice can happen before huge sweeping events. It is in the quiet margins that workplace culture is made, and at critical transition points where it is truly tested.


Those who approach change with clarity and intention will not only protect a culture of trust; they will build workplaces where people and performance can endure and thrive.


Author bio

Tiffany Tate is a keynote speaker, leadership strategist, and Founder of Career Maven Consulting, a national leadership development and talent advisory firm that partners with organizations to strengthen leadership pipelines, navigate workforce transitions, and develop talent in the future of work.



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© 2020–2024 by REACH Women's Network, Winston-Salem, NC

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