You've been told your role is at risk. Here is what to do next.

You've been told your role is at risk. Here is what to do next.

A practical guide for senior professionals facing redundancy in 2026.

THE SITUATION

A senior leader, a Director at a global financial services firm, received a calendar invite on a Tuesday afternoon. One hour. HR and her line manager. No agenda.

She knew what it was before she walked in.

Formal consultation had begun. Her role was at risk. She had 45 days.

What happened next determined whether she left with a process that reflected her leverage or one that reflected HR's first offer.

The difference was not luck. It was sequencing.

WHY THIS MATTERS NOW

Redundancy cycles are not random. They cluster. Budget cycles close, headcount decisions are made, and notifications go out in waves.

If you are inside a large organisation right now, particularly in financial services or technology, the probability that someone in your network is navigating this is high.

The probability that you will face it at some point in your career is higher than most people plan for.

This guide covers what matters when the process starts, and where most people lose leverage they did not know they had.

STAGE ONE

The first meeting: do not treat it as a conversation

In some cases, you will have had a quiet signal before the formal meeting. An offhand comment from your manager. A restructure announcement that did not quite add up. Nothing official, nothing documented, but enough to know something was coming.

Whether you had warning or not, the first formal consultation meeting follows the same logic.

Most people arrive with the instinct to explain themselves, demonstrate their value, or ask what they can do differently. That instinct is wrong.

The first consultation meeting is not a performance review. It is an administrative step. Its purpose is to notify you that a process has begun, not to assess whether you survive it.

What you should do instead:

• Ask for the selection criteria in writing before the meeting ends.

• Ask whether your role is at risk or your performance is under review. These are different processes with different leverage points.

• Do not volunteer information about your finances, your plans, or your emotional state.

• Take notes. Everything said in that room becomes part of the record.

Say as little as possible. Listen carefully. Ask specific questions. Leave.

STAGE TWO

Selection criteria: understand what you are actually being assessed against

Selection criteria in redundancy processes vary considerably. Future potential. Skillset. Role criticality. Scope of impact. There is no universal standard, and the criteria applied in your process will have been chosen for a reason.

At large institutions, selection criteria are reviewed by legal before communication begins. The reputational and employment law risk of an undocumented process is too high. So the criteria will exist, and there will be documentation to support the outcome.

What that does not mean is that the criteria are objective. Subjective measures like future potential or strategic contribution are legitimate, but they are also open to interpretation. Weighting decisions are made by people, and people have views.

Some processes are also shaped before they are formally opened. If someone has been informally identified for a role, or informally excluded from one, the criteria may have been constructed to reach a conclusion that already existed. This happens. It is rarely provable. But it is worth understanding.

Before scoring is finalised, ask:

• How is each criterion weighted?

• What evidence will be used to assess me against each criterion?

• What is the composition of the comparator pool?

These are reasonable questions. Asking them early signals that you understand the process and intend to engage with it properly. It also shifts the conversation from emotional to procedural, which is where your leverage sits.

Once the outcome is delivered, you are entitled to ask how the selection process worked and to see the documentation behind it. That right exists. Most people do not use it.

Challenging criteria weighting before scoring is finalised is legitimate and often effective. Challenging it after the outcome has been reached is almost always too late.

STAGE THREE

Compensation: know what is fixed and what is not

At large financial institutions, the severance package itself is not negotiable. It is set by policy, tied to tenure, and applied consistently across the population. Expecting to negotiate the headline number is a mistake that can damage the tone of every conversation that follows.

Deferred compensation treatment is also largely standardised. At most large banks, if the organisation initiates the redundancy, the treatment is more favourable than if you had resigned. Unvested awards are often protected. The rules are defined, documented, and applied consistently. Worth understanding in detail, but rarely a point of negotiation.

Bonus eligibility is governed more by the jurisdiction you sit in than by the company itself. Swiss, UK, and US rules differ materially. Know which applies to you.

Where discretion genuinely exists:

• Garden leave timing. When it starts and whether it can be brought forward. This is the most material lever available to most people in this situation. It determines when you can begin market conversations and accept another role.

• Non-compete and non-solicit scope and duration. Both can often be narrowed through direct negotiation, particularly if the original clause is broader than the role warranted.

The organisation will not raise either of these unprompted. That is not because they are immovable. It is because there is no benefit to them in raising it first.

A good employment solicitor is worth the cost at this stage. So is a session with someone who has sat on the other side of these conversations.

STAGE FOUR

Reference and narrative: agree the language before you leave

By the time most people think about their reference, they have already signed the settlement agreement. That is too late.

Reference language is negotiable. The wording of your internal announcement is negotiable. Your eligibility for rehire is negotiable. None of these cost the organisation money. All of them matter for what comes next.

Before you sign:

• Agree the reference language in writing and attach it to the settlement agreement.

• Agree who is named as your reference.

• Confirm your internal rehire eligibility status.

• Agree the internal communication before it goes out.

Senior people in financial services and technology move through overlapping networks. What your former employer says about you, and how they say it, follows you.

THE SEQUENCE THAT MATTERS

What most people get wrong

The most common mistake is treating redundancy as something that happens to you rather than something you navigate.

By the time formal consultation begins, the internal decision is largely made. The process that follows is procedural. It can be influenced, but it cannot usually be reversed.

What can be influenced: the garden leave timing, the non-compete scope, the reference language, the internal narrative, and the documentation trail.

None of these require confrontation. They require sequencing. Asking the right questions at the right stage, before each window closes.

Leverage in redundancy narrows over time. The first two weeks of consultation hold more optionality than the last two days before signing.

IF THIS IS YOUR SITUATION

I work with senior professionals navigating active redundancy processes. Not CV writing. Not morale. Structural analysis of what is actually negotiable and what the sequencing should look like.

The starting point for most of the work I do is a Decision Call: a focused 45-minute session, CHF 350, with a written summary delivered within 48 hours. Credited in full toward any further advisory within 30 days.

Book a Decision Call at hernextposition.com

Hope is not a strategy. Positioning is.