Use our workforce planning and job design factsheets to review the structure of work, teams and job designs to capture synergies. Focus particularly on improving the capability of your line management and customer service. Think long term – protect your training and development budget and, if redundancies are planned, remember that recruiting when the market picks up can be difficult, costly and impact on your reputation.

Talk to your employees, even when there is little concrete news. Foster open and transparent dialogue, provide direction and manage expectations. Keep your people managers up-to-date – give them tangible support and tools to manage difficult conversations.

Consider non-financial incentives to keep people motivated, such as team-building days and employee awards.

Set out processes to deal with workplace stress and potential conflict  at an early stage. Recognise the psychological burden of economic turmoil and rising living costs. Establish or review workplace mental health support and financial wellbeing support as well as occupational health provisions to minimise anxiety, especially if there are pay or benefits cuts. If pay is affected, focus on protecting those on the lowest salaries.

Don’t forget to look after yourself. Operating in difficult times, especially when it involves redundancies, will be stressful and draining for HR teams. Our wellbeing guide  for people managers provides practical resources and principles to support anyone involved in managing people. And CIPD members have free access to our wellbeing helpline services.