For Fractional and Internal HR/ER Leaders
RIFs are Hard Enough. Don’t Make It Worse By Winging It
Use The Restructuring Play instead – Eight AI-powered skills built from 19 years of casework, so you never run a reduction in force on instinct alone.
RIF Planning Companion
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RIF Compliance Navigator
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Selection Matrix Builder
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Adverse Impact Checker
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Notifying Manager Kit Builder
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Notification Day Runbook
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RIF Comms and FAQ Builder
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Post-RIF Coordinator
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RIF Planning Companion ✳︎ RIF Compliance Navigator ✳︎ Selection Matrix Builder ✳︎ Adverse Impact Checker ✳︎ Notifying Manager Kit Builder ✳︎ Notification Day Runbook ✳︎ RIF Comms and FAQ Builder ✳︎ Post-RIF Coordinator ✳︎
Dear HR and ER Practitioner,
You already know the call is coming before it fully arrives. Leadership needs headcount down, and they need it fast. Somewhere in the next few weeks you'll be asked to turn a number into a plan, a plan into a list, and a list into conversations that people remember for the rest of their careers.
Here's what makes a reduction in force different from almost anything else you do in this job: you don't get a second attempt at any of it. The business case has to hold up before a single name gets attached to it. The selection criteria have to be dated and locked before anyone scores a person against them. The list has to survive an adverse impact check before it's final, not after. The notice periods have to clear the slowest legal obligation in the footprint, not the date leadership already told the board. And the ten minutes a manager spends notifying someone is a conversation that person will replay for years, whether it went well or not.
Most practitioners build the instinct for this the hard way, RIF by RIF, mistake by mistake. A criterion that got written after the names were already picked. A timeline that got built forward from a date leadership wanted instead of backward from the law. A notifying manager who went off script in the one meeting that couldn't afford it. None of it comes from carelessness. It comes from running a reduction without a system built to catch the moment before it becomes exposure.
Whether you're a fractional HR consultant walking a founder through their first reduction, the person inside a growing company who now owns this along with everything else, or the HRBP sequencing a multi-country event with a legal team watching, the stakes are the same. The rationale has to hold. The process has to be fair. And you don't get to run it twice.
The Restructuring Play was built to hold that line for you, every time.
Why I Built This
I've spent 19 years inside HR and talent functions at companies like Target, Cisco, AppDynamics, and DataRobot, and I've sat on both sides of a reduction: the one that was planned with discipline and held up, and the one where the timeline got compressed, the criteria came after the names, and the cleanup cost more than the headcount saved.
I've watched a business case get written to justify a list instead of the other way around. I've watched a notification day fall apart because access got cut before the conversation happened. I've watched good managers freelance their way through the hardest meeting of their year because nobody handed them a script and told them it was the kind thing to do.
I've learned, reduction by reduction, that the difference between a defensible RIF and an exposed one usually comes down to the order things happen in, and the discipline to hold that order under pressure from people who want to move faster.
The Restructuring Play is that discipline, built into skills you can lean on from the first budget conversation to the last signed release.
Sara Rodgers
Performance Management Consultant
Here's How It Works
The Restructuring Play is a set of eight interconnected AI skills that cover the full arc of a reduction in force, from the first budget conversation to the day the last release clears. Each skill knows its job and stays in its lane, and the system hands a reduction off cleanly as it moves from planning to selection to compliance to notification to aftermath, instead of forcing you to start over at every stage.
It starts before any names exist. The RIF Planning Companion builds the business case, the documented alternatives, the decisional unit, and the confidentiality architecture that keeps a working group of five people from becoming a leak. The RIF Compliance Navigator maps the real legal calendar, federal WARN, state mini-WARN, OWBPA windows, international consultation, and builds the timeline backward from the slowest obligation instead of forward from a date leadership already likes.
From there, the Selection Matrix Builder turns "who stays and who goes" into criteria defined and dated before anyone is scored against them, and the Adverse Impact Checker runs the actual four-fifths math on the draft list before it's called final, not after. The Notifying Manager Kit Builder equips the people delivering the news with a script, a reaction card, and rehearsal coaching, and the Notification Day Runbook runs the hour-by-hour machine so every person hears it from their manager first, never from a systems lockout or a rumor. The RIF Comms and FAQ Builder writes everything the company says beyond those meetings, drafted the way it should be: assuming it leaks. And the Post-RIF Coordinator runs the aftermath, releases against their legal clocks, the rehire rule, survivor stability, so the reduction doesn't quietly cost more in the ninety days after than it saved on paper.
These skills are opinionated on purpose. Hand one a list of names before the criteria exist, and it will say so, plainly, and walk you back to the roles. Ask one to fix an adverse impact flag by swapping names, and it will refuse and explain why that's the worse exposure. Ask for a termination script in a country where the law requires consultation first, and it will decline and route you to the right sequencing instead. That's not friction. That's the system protecting the case, and protecting you.
None of this replaces you.
AI can hold structure, sequencing, and consistency across a process with dozens of moving parts in a way that's hard to sustain on memory alone. It can't sit across from a person the day they're notified, read what's underneath a leader's pressure to move faster, or decide what's right for the specific people in front of you. That's still you. The Restructuring Play is built to make you faster and more defensible walking into that work, not to take your place in it.
Here's What You Get
Eight skills, each built for a specific phase of a reduction in force.
RIF Planning Companion
Builds the business case, the documented alternatives, the decisional unit, and the confidentiality architecture, so nothing starts moving until the rationale can survive being read back in a deposition.
Selection Matrix Builder
Turns "who stays and who goes" into criteria, defined and dated before any names attach, so the process runs from the roles the company needs, not the names anyone already has in mind.
Notifying Manager Kit Builder
Equips the managers who deliver the news with the script, the reaction card, and the rehearsal, because the ten minutes an employee remembers for years should never be improvised.
RIF Compliance Navigator
Maps the WARN, state mini-WARN, OWBPA, and international consultation calendar, then builds the separation date backward from the slowest real obligation instead of forward from what leadership wants.
Adverse Impact Checker
Runs the actual four-fifths math and significance testing on the draft list, and refuses every request to fix a flagged ratio by swapping names.
Notification Day Runbook
Runs the hour-by-hour machine for the day itself: timezone waves, the impacted tracker, access sequencing, and the all-clear, so no one ever learns secondhand
RIF Comms and FAQ Builder
Writes the announcement, the FAQs, and the survivor communications under one rule: every draft is written as if it will leak, because it usually does.
Post-RIF Coordinator
Tracks releases against their legal clocks, keeps the rehire rule in writing, and runs the 90-day survivor stability plan while the next reduction, if there is one, is still just a rumor.
Note: This is a monthly subscription that runs in Claude. One link connects it, with no downloads or setup, and every new skill and update reaches you automatically.
Imagine Your Next Reduction With This Already in Place
Leadership hands you a number instead of a list, and you already know how to turn it into a defensible plan. The criteria exist before anyone is scored against them. The timeline is built backward from the law, so nobody is surprised by a notice period six weeks in. The managers rehearse before they notify, and the day itself runs like a schedule instead of a scramble. When the releases go out, the clocks are tracked automatically, and nobody gets pressured to sign early.
The weight doesn't disappear.
These are still real people losing real jobs, and that never gets easy. But the guesswork does.
You walk into every reduction with a system built by someone who has run this exact process, instead of just your own instinct and whatever you remember from the last one.
How The Restructuring Play Works
Step 1 – 10 Minutes
Get the Skills in Place
Install the eight skills into your Claude workspace. No setup beyond that, they're ready before your next budget conversation.
Step 2 – 2 Minutes
Start with the Business Case
Describe what's driving the reduction, in plain language, the way you'd tell a colleague. The RIF Planning Companion and Compliance Navigator take it from there, building the rationale and the legal calendar in parallel.
Step 3 – as needed
Select, Check, and Prepare
Build the criteria before any names attach, run the adverse impact check before the list is final, and equip your notifying managers with scripts they've actually rehearsed.
Step 4 – 5 Minutes
Notification Day and Beyond: Run It Clean, Close It Clean
Execute the day off the runbook, communicate under the leak-test discipline, and let the Post-RIF Coordinator carry the releases, the rehire rule, and the ninety days of survivor stability that follow.
This is for you if…
You're a fractional HR consultant walking a founder through their first reduction and need a process you can trust without rebuilding it from scratch
You're the person inside a growing company who now owns a RIF along with everything else, and there's no in-house employment counsel on speed dial
You're an HRBP or ER consultant sequencing a multi-state or multi-country reduction and need the timeline built in the right order the first time
You're tired of guessing whether your selection criteria, your notice periods, or your notification day plan would hold up if any of it were ever questioned
You want the managers delivering the news to have a script they've rehearsed, not an outline they're improvising in the room
You believe a reduction can be handled with real discipline and real dignity at the same time, not just efficiency
This is not for you if you're looking for a tool that makes the reduction decision for you. The Restructuring Play equips your process and your judgment. It doesn't replace either one, and it isn't legal advice. You're still the one running the reduction.
Writing a business case to justify a list that was already decided
Discovering a notice period requirement six weeks into a timeline that assumed you had less time than you did
Guessing whether your selection criteria would survive being questioned
Fixing an adverse impact flag the wrong way and creating a worse problem than the one you started with
Sending a notifying manager into the hardest meeting of their year with no script and no rehearsal
Letting the ninety days after notification day quietly cost more in survivor attrition than the reduction saved
And the Best News Is – You Don’t Have to Do Any of This…
Ready to Run the Next One, Right?
Whether a reduction is already on the calendar or just a possibility leadership mentioned once, the system is better built before the number arrives than after.
Things to Know As You Get Started
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Treat every detail the way you would in any working file: use initials, role titles, or placeholder names instead of real names for anyone involved, on either side of the reduction. The skills don't need a real name to function, they need the facts and the sequence. I'll also show you how to turn off any publicly facing connection to the AI training models, so the people in your process stay protected.
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No, and no. The Restructuring Play equips your process with structure, sequencing, and language. You're still the one weighing the specifics and deciding what's right for your organization, and this is never a substitute for employment counsel. Several skills are built to flag the exact moments a reduction needs a lawyer in the room, and to route you there before the next step.
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Yes. Both modes are built in. The system scales the process down to a founder-size reduction without skipping the parts that keep it defensible, and scales up to a multi-state or multi-country event when the footprint calls for it.
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It will map every threshold that's in play, federal and state, and flag anything close enough to treat as live. Whether you're actually covered, and how to proceed, is a determination for employment counsel, always. The skill builds the counsel-prep packet; it doesn't issue the ruling.
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Yes. Give it the decisional unit roster with selections marked, and it computes selection rates, the four-fifths ratios, and statistical significance with actual numbers, not a description of the method. It will also tell you, plainly, that it can't create attorney-client privilege on its own, and that the analysis should be run at counsel's direction if you want that protection.
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No. The Restructuring Play helps you run a consistent, well-sequenced, well-documented process and gives you language for the hardest conversations in it, but it isn't a substitute for employment counsel. Several of the skills are built to flag the moment a decision needs a lawyer, and to route you there before the next step.
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Some of the legal framing, WARN, OWBPA, at-will norms, is built around U.S. employment practice, and the international sequencing guidance covers the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands at a mapping level. If you're operating in another jurisdiction, review the underlying legal assumptions with local counsel before relying on these skills as-is, and always sequence international consultation ahead of U.S. notifications, never the other way around.
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These skills are built for Claude, and that's the environment where they run best. If you're working in ChatGPT, we can still support you in adapting the process, so don't let that stop you from reaching out.
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It’s a monthly subscription, and you can cancel anytime. Your access runs through the end of the billing period you’ve paid for. If you’re not getting the full value from these skills, reach out and I’ll make sure you’ve set up everything correctly and that they’re working the way they should inside your organization.
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Yes. The Business plan covers your whole organization, so everyone on your team can use it. If you’re a fractional HR partner, choose the Fractional HR Partner plan, which covers your work across all the clients you serve.
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Probably not this one. This Play assumes an HR person is in the room. If you have 2 to 50 people and HR is you, The Small Business Play was built for exactly that: hiring, contractors, complaints, resignations, the hard conversation, and letting someone go, in plain words, in any state.
Final Words
I built The Restructuring Play because I've seen how much of a reduction's outcome is decided before anyone in the room realizes it's already been decided, in the order the work happened, weeks before notification day.
You already have the judgment this work requires. This makes sure you never have to run it without the structure to back it up.
Sara Rodgers
SaraRodgersConsulting.com