UK universities announced cuts equivalent to more than 15,000 jobs in a year. How you let people go is now part of your brand.

Last October, UCU calculated that UK universities had announced cuts equivalent to more than 15,000 jobs in a single year, three times the figure it had reported only seven months earlier. Behind that number are departments closing, courses paused and colleagues leaving institutions they’ve given decades to.

Times Higher Education’s redundancy survey this spring gave a sense of what it feels like on the inside. Of 1,095 staff who responded, 198 had been made redundant in the past two years. Among those who hadn’t, 68% had seen redundancies in their own department. 93% said morale had been damaged, and 59% feared losing their job within the next year. It’s a self-selecting sample, but the direction is unmistakable.

Why restructuring has become a reputation issue

I’ve written before about reputation belonging to everyone in a university. A restructure tests that idea harder than anything else, because the people who carry the institution’s story are the people being affected.

They’re also your most widely read channel. Departing colleagues post on LinkedIn, write candid reviews and talk at conferences. Remaining staff tell friends, students and prospective colleagues what it feels like to work there. And academic reputation is shaped by peers at other institutions (the same people asked to rate universities in global reputation surveys), who hear all of it.

None of this means universities shouldn’t make difficult decisions. Many have no choice. But the way a decision is communicated and carried out will be remembered long after the savings are banked.

In a restructure, your staff become your most widely read channel. What they say on the way out will outlive the savings.

What I’d ask every vice-chancellor and director of communications to do

Tell staff first, every time. Nobody should learn about their own department’s future from a news site or a union email. If the press will hear on Tuesday, staff hear on Monday.

Give managers a narrative, not a script. Heads of department carry most of these conversations. Equip them with the honest reasons, the timeline and the support available, and trust them to talk like human beings.

Treat leavers with dignity. Good references, outplacement support, a proper goodbye and a way to stay connected cost very little. People remember how they were treated at the end, and so does everyone watching.

Explain what you’re protecting. Staff and students need to hear the strategy, not just the cuts. What will the university be better at after this? If leaders can’t say, others will fill the silence for them.

Measure sentiment as closely as coverage. Track staff surveys, review sites and professional networks with the same discipline you apply to the media. They’re often the earliest warning of a reputation problem.

The opportunity

This cycle will turn. When it does, the universities that restructured with honesty and care will find it far easier to recruit good people back, and their standing with academic peers will have held.

I’ll be talking to leaders who’ve been through restructures on Season 2 of the podcast about what they’d do differently, because how a university behaves in its hardest year says more about its brand than any campaign.

Jonathan Sabarre FCIM MBA is Principal Consultant at QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a keynote speaker and host of Marketing Greats in Higher Education. Get the weekly email or invite him to speak.