Charities under financial pressure that are cutting jobs are failing to plan how they will support staff who remain and have to cover work extra work or take up new roles, warns a charity recruiter.

Emily Formby, divisional director at Charity Recruit, said the issue is a regular topic in her conversations with charity leaders over the last year.

“When the money gets tight, the first conversation is nearly always about which posts can go,” she said.

“Much less thought goes into what happens afterwards, and who will support the staff who stay as their jobs change.”

This is a particular issue at small charities, which do not have large human resources teams to support staff. Also, in small charities such decisions often rest solely with busy chief executives.

Charity Recuit said that at a recent event with charity leaders it ran “one small charity chief executive with no HR team said they did that work themselves as well as running the charity, while another leader fresh from a restructure was about to run a strategy process with no dedicated organisational development support.

“One attendee said values drawn up jointly by staff and trustees had quickly gathered dust. A leader who runs a quarterly staff pulse survey said its falling scores had not yet reached the board.”

She added that strong candidates for leadership roles are increasingly concerned about lack of planning for staff that remain following a restructure.

“Boards ask me for a chief executive who can lead change, and good candidates turn the question straight back,” said Formby.

“They want to know what the plan is for the people who are left. If nobody has thought about it, that tells them a great deal about the job.”

Boards at charities overseeing change are urged to agree who will lead the restructure before posts go and ensure that trustees receive quarterly data about staff support and how they are coping after their colleagues have lost their jobs.

---