Beneath the Headline | Edition 001
The human impact behind the business story.
The Headline
On October 1, 2026, Nike announced Pace, a multiyear restructuring initiative expected to generate approximately $2.5 billion in cumulative savings through fiscal 2031. The plan includes workforce reductions, but decisions about affected roles won't begin until 2027 and beyond. At the time of the announcement, the company had not disclosed how many employees or locations would be affected.
So here's a question worth considering: Should Nike have waited until it knew exactly who would be affected before announcing that jobs would be eliminated? Or is it better to give employees advance notice, even when you don't have all the answers?
There's no simple answer. But how leaders approach that decision can shape the human experience of an entire business transformation.
Beneath the Headline
I commend Nike for communicating early rather than waiting until every decision was finalized. In Nike's October 1 announcement, CEO Elliott Hill acknowledged the uncertainty the announcement would create and committed to transparency, direct communication, and continued updates. Nike also identified upcoming employee meetings and communication channels.
That's meaningful.
We've seen what the opposite approach can look like. In December 2021, Better.com CEO Vishal Garg informed approximately 900 employees during a group Zoom call that their employment was ending immediately. The announcement generated widespread criticism, and Garg later apologized for how he handled it.
Two companies. Two very different approaches to communicating workforce reductions. One gave employees advance notice without all the answers. The other delivered a final decision with virtually no time to prepare.
Neither approach eliminates the difficulty of losing a job. But the contrast raises an important leadership question: How do you give employees a meaningful opportunity to prepare when you don't yet have all the answers?
Organizations have legitimate reasons to restructure. Financial pressures, changing customer expectations, and operational inefficiencies can require difficult decisions. Leaders also have legal, operational, and sometimes consultation obligations that influence what they can communicate and when.
Still, there's a difference between withholding information because a decision isn't final and withholding information because leadership hasn't considered what employees need to know.
The challenge isn't choosing between complete silence and complete certainty. It's determining what can responsibly be shared while recognizing that employees have decisions of their own to make.
The Human Impact
Imagine hearing that your employer plans to eliminate jobs, but you won't know for months whether yours is one of them.
You still have deadlines, customers, and performance expectations. But you also have a mortgage or rent payment, childcare expenses, medical bills, and financial obligations that don't disappear because your employer is redesigning its business.
Do you renew your lease? Apply for another job? Postpone buying a home? Accept an opportunity elsewhere, even if you love your current role?
These are hypothetical questions, not accounts from Nike employees. But they illustrate why employment uncertainty extends far beyond the workplace.
And research supports taking those concerns seriously. A 2019 meta-analysis examining 106 studies and more than 50,000 individuals across 33 countries found that job insecurity was generally associated with poorer task performance, reduced safety performance, and increased counterproductive work behavior. These findings identify associations, not proof that uncertainty causes any particular employee response.
There's another consequence leaders should consider.
The consequences of uncertainty aren't confined to the people who eventually lose their jobs. They can also affect the people an organization intends to keep.
An employee with valuable institutional knowledge may decide not to wait for the outcome. A manager may struggle to maintain confidence while answering questions leadership hasn't resolved. A team may postpone important decisions because it doesn't know which resources will remain available.
These aren't inevitable outcomes, and we don't know whether they're occurring at Nike. They're foreseeable risks that deserve attention.
The business doesn't stop operating while employees wait to learn whether they'll still be part of it.
Before It Becomes Your Headline
So what should leaders do when they know change is coming but don't yet have all the details?
First, determine what is confirmed, what remains uncertain, and what employees can reasonably expect next. Don't create a slow drip of disconnected announcements that leaves people piecing together their futures through speculation. Establish a deliberate communication cadence, explain why information is incomplete, and commit to sharing more as decisions are made and can responsibly be communicated.
And be intentional about explaining why you're communicating before everything is finalized.
Consider what this might sound like:
"We're sharing what we know today because we recognize that you have decisions to make about your career, your family, and your future. We don't have every answer yet, but we will continue communicating as decisions are made and can be shared. We also understand that some of you may need to make decisions before we do."
That language does more than acknowledge uncertainty. It tells employees leadership understands that their lives cannot be placed on hold while the organization determines its future.
But words alone aren't a workforce strategy.
Organizations should anticipate that some employees will leave before the restructuring is complete. That means assessing critical roles, identifying knowledge-transfer needs, preparing managers, and considering reasonable transition options where feasible. Leaders should also monitor employee concerns, turnover patterns, and operational vulnerabilities throughout the process.
Respecting an employee's decision to pursue another opportunity shouldn't be confused with abandoning the organization's responsibility to maintain business continuity. Both realities can be managed thoughtfully.
And neither requires promising job security that leadership cannot guarantee.
The Closing Thought
Nike's announcement presents a leadership dilemma that extends far beyond one company.
I don't believe organizations should automatically wait until every detail is finalized before communicating consequential workforce changes. Early transparency can give employees something valuable: time to prepare.
But advance notice alone isn't enough. What matters is whether the organization has considered what employees will need to know, how uncertainty will be managed, and what happens when people begin making decisions before the company does.
Organizations spend considerable time planning what their future workforce should look like. They should give equal consideration to what their current workforce will experience while getting there.
Because when a company announces that its future is changing, employees immediately begin reconsidering theirs.
Stay Human,
LaShawn Davis
About the Author
LaShawn Davis is the Founder and CEO of The HR Plug, an employee and labor relations advisory firm, and the creator of The UNPLUG Experience. Drawing on her experience advising organizations and leading employee and labor relations across complex workforces, she writes about the human impact of business decisions, workplace culture, and the leadership responsibility to humanize work.
Reader Correspondence
Beneath the Headline explores the human impact behind business stories, examining how organizational decisions shape the experiences of employees and what leaders can learn from them.
Have a perspective to share, a question about this edition, or a business story you think deserves a closer look? Contact the author at hello@lashawndavis.me.