Interview Conducted by Relevante Teammates: William Brassington, Chelsea Broody, Lee Ann Davidovich & Thejas Prasanna.
Insights from Paul Narvaez, Co-Founder of WellWise.
Executive Summary
Reductions in force change the operating structure of an organization, but they also disrupt the human system that makes performance possible. In this interview, Paul Narvaez describes layoffs as a moment when “everything’s broken” and the company “loses their bearings.”
The first break is trust. “What truly breaks first is the trust in leadership,” he says. Once trust falters, clarity, psychological safety, and belonging unravel quickly.
This paper translates Paul’s interview into a practical guide for HR and people leaders. It focuses on: what breaks first, why employees often know before leadership admits it, how leaders lose credibility, how to communicate with emotional truth without overpromising, how middle management becomes the hinge point, and how organizations rebuild by returning to foundational cultural strengths.
The First Break: Trust, Then Clarity and Belonging
After layoffs, employees do not just ask “Will I have a job?” They also ask:
- Is leadership telling the truth?
- Is the company stable?
- What do the next 30 days look like?
- Who is safe?
- What will happen to my workload and identity here?
Paul summarizes the starting point simply: “What truly breaks first is the trust.” He clarifies what trust means in this context: confidence that leaders are honest, and that the system employees relied on is stable and predictable.
Once trust fractures, the rest falls quickly. Employees lose “clarity,” “safety,” and their “sense of belonging.” HR leaders can treat these not as abstract feelings, but as operational risks that impact retention, productivity, and employer brand.
Why Layoffs Are Rarely a Surprise: The Grapevine System
One reason RIF communications go sideways is that employees have already formed a narrative before leadership speaks.
Paul describes two communication ecosystems: “There’s an upper grapevine and there’s a lower grapevine.” As information trickles down, it often becomes “diluted” and redefined. Even if leadership intends a neutral message, employees will frequently interpret it as negative.
He calls out a common executive blind spot: leaders underestimate how quickly information travels, and how confidently employees believe what they hear informally.
“It’s probably the biggest mistake CEOs make, thinking people don’t know the truth behind an action.”
For HR leaders, this means timing and clarity matter. Silence is not neutral. Silence invites the grapevine to do the job.
How Leaders Lose Credibility After a RIF
In the interview, Paul repeatedly returns to three credibility errors:
- leaders avoid directness
- leaders are not visible
- leaders fail to explain the path forward
He states it plainly: “Lack of direct communication, lack of visibility, are two main issues.”
When leaders hedge, delegate the message, or let informal channels carry the story, employees interpret it as avoidance or uncertainty. The cultural damage is not just the layoff itself. It is the feeling that leadership is not “at the helm.”
HR can reduce this risk by coaching leaders on message clarity, delivery cadence, and follow-through behaviors. Employees may not like the news, but they will respect truth paired with a plan.
Communicating Emotion Without Overpromising
Leaders often struggle to acknowledge fear, anger, and survivor guilt while staying legally safe. Paul’s guidance is practical:
- Speak plainly
- Name what is known and unknown
- Set update cadence
- Be visible
- Reset priorities and workload
“Speak in plain English. Be specific about what they know, what they don’t know,” he says.
He emphasizes that leaders should not just say they care. They need to demonstrate empathy and prove clarity with behavior.
“Empathy and clarity will help prove your ability to follow through as a leader.”
For HR teams, the implication is that communications should not be one-and-done. Build a rhythm of updates and equip managers with talking points and escalation paths. Then reinforce those messages through actions: workload resets, clear priorities, and visible support.
Middle Management: The Hinge Point of Culture Repair
Managers translate corporate messaging into daily reality. After layoffs, they are also processing their own stress.
“There’s trauma that the middle management team is going through as well,” Paul says.
He recommends a structured forum where leadership shares the plan and invites managers to weigh in. The strongest approaches incorporate input from departments and visibly reflect that listening in subsequent actions.
“The best ones take a little bit from each department, and they put [it] into the plan.”
HR leaders can operationalize this by:
- Running manager-only sessions before all-hands updates
- Capturing anticipated employee questions
- Giving managers clear scripts, boundaries, and escalation routes
- Aligning workload and priorities to the new headcount reality
- Tacking recurring concerns in weekly manager check-ins
Rebuilding Culture by Returning to What Made the Company Strong
Paul’s engineering firm example illustrates a repeatable process. The organization grew rapidly, then shrank. During growth, communication practices that worked at 40 people did not scale to 140. After layoffs, the company had a chance to reset and rebuild intentionally.
They “went back to the drawing board,” involving a broad set of internal voices, and rebuilt a shared narrative of identity and purpose.
“They… came up with the sort of master list of who we are. They redefined and reshaped the mission statement.”
This is not nostalgia. It is cultural engineering. The question is:
- What strengths were real when the company worked well?
- What processes eroded those strengths?
- What must be rebuilt now to create stability and performance?
Why Psychological Safety Often Requires a Separate Channel
Paul is explicit about why culture conversations often fail on work platforms.
“When employees have real discussion, it’s not going to be on the company platforms.” And: “You’ll never see… organic, real human connection happening on a workforce platform.”
His point is that performance tools create performance behavior. Employees worry their vulnerability becomes data. Culture repair needs a container designed for trust, privacy, and honest dialogue.
For HR leaders, the takeaway is not that Slack or Teams are bad. It is that sensitive conversations require intentional design: a safe channel, clear norms, and credible stewardship.
What to Measure: Signals That Culture Repair Is Working
Paul looks for early momentum and identifiable culture champions.
“When I start to see that core group of 10 to 20… they start to develop the pulse.”
From there, the goal is to build engagement outward. His broader point is that culture repair is not a poster campaign. It is management.
“The process needs to be managed, like other successful departments.”
HR can measure progress through:
- Engagement patterns (who participates, who never does)
- Manager feedback loops and recurring concerns
- Retention risk indicators in critical roles
- Workload strain signals and burnout markers
- Trust signals in surveys and qualitative interviews
When More Layoffs Might Be Coming: The Case for Conditional Honesty
One of the most practical sections of the interview is how to communicate uncertainty without panic.
Paul warns against declaring that no more bad things will happen if leadership cannot guarantee it. He recommends conditional transparency and a clear update cadence.
“We may have to… if sales numbers don’t improve in the third quarter, we may have to make some tough decisions again.”
This approach respects adults. It gives employees a framework for what leadership is watching and reduces the sense of betrayal if conditions worsen.
The Most Visible Proof: How You Treat Departing Employees
Paul’s message to leaders is that employees watch actions, not slogans.
“How you treated those… is the greatest message… that you can share with the team.” And: “Show that your actions speak louder than your sort of conceptual words.”
Employees notice severance, references, job placement effort, and the humanity of the process. HR leaders can treat outplacement and transition support as culture protection for the people who remain, not just a service for the people leaving.
What this means for HR leaders
If you want to protect culture during and after a RIF, focus on:
- Trust rebuilding through clarity and visibility
- Manager enablement as the core delivery channel
- Psychological safety and channel design
- Authentic identity reset by returning to core strengths
- Humane treatment of departing employees as a signal to survivors
Relevante’s role: support transitions with structured, high-touch outplacement that stabilizes departing employees and reduces risk, distraction, and trust loss for the organization.
About Paul Narvaez:
Paul Narvaez is the CMO & Co-Founder of WellWise and has spent 20+ years building marketing teams and growth programs across B2B SaaS, ad-tech, and consumer brands, including work with EA Sports, SONY, HGTV, NFL, Gatorade, and Twitter/MoPub.
WellWise is an employee wellbeing SaaS platform designed to improve team performance by building company culture through a focus on employee wellbeing. It includes a dedicated Company Wellbeing Coach, actionable monthly reporting, a rewards points system, and employee access to a Work+Life Shop with 1,000+ curated wellbeing products.
About This Series:
This article is part of Relevante’s HR Leadership Newsletter, focused on practical ways to build humane, high-performance cultures onboarding to off-boarding, and every conversation in between.
