{"site":{"name":"Koji","description":"AI-native customer research platform that helps teams conduct, analyze, and synthesize customer interviews at scale.","url":"https://www.koji.so","contentTypes":["blog","documentation"],"lastUpdated":"2026-10-25T12:30:16.247Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"b4c5334d-0fda-4ac8-99c9-64b13bf87880","slug":"layoff-survivor-interviews-hr-playbook","title":"Layoff Survivor Interviews: An HR Playbook for Finding Out What the People Who Stayed Actually Think","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/layoff-survivor-interviews-hr-playbook","summary":"A playbook for HR leaders on interviewing the employees who stay after a layoff or restructuring. It sets out why survivor perceptions of fairness, workload and job security matter, a two-wave timeline starting about ten days after the announcement, a sampling rule by headcount, a full eight-question interview guide with probes, and how to run it anonymously with AI-moderated interviews in Koji.","content":"Layoff survivor interviews are a short round of conversations with the people who kept their jobs, run in the weeks after a layoff or restructuring to find out what they are carrying, what they believe and who is quietly deciding to leave. Running them with AI-moderated interviews means every team gets the same questions, nobody has to say it to their manager's face, and you get quotes and counts instead of a mood. By the end of this playbook you will have a timeline, a sampling rule, a full interview guide and a readout format you can use this month.\n\n## Why layoff survivor interviews matter now\n\nAnnounced job cuts have not gone away. Challenger, Gray & Christmas counted [443,604 announced US job cuts in the first half of 2026](https://www.challengergray.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Challenger-Report-June-2026.pdf), and AI was the reason given for 101,743 of them, about 23%. Each of those announcements leaves a larger group behind: the people who still have a job and a longer to-do list.\n\n![A small team at their desks in a quiet office, working through the extra load that follows a layoff](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1675434301763-594b4d0c5819?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w5NDUzMDN8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHx0ZWFtJTIwb2ZmaWNlJTIwcXVpZXQlMjBkZXNrc3xlbnwxfDB8fHwxNzkyOTE0NjEwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)\n\n_Photo by [Paymo](https://unsplash.com/@paymo?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral)_\n\nMost companies write careful messages for the people who leave and very little for the people who stay. A [2025 survey by Kahoot](https://kahoot.com/press/2025/06/17/65-of-layoff-survivors-say-lack-of-training-led-to-costly-mistakes/), fielded by Researchscape from 24 April to 1 May 2025 with 1,064 full-time US workers who had been through at least one layoff in the past three years, found that 65% said a lack of training after the layoff led to a costly mistake or left them unprepared or hesitant to act. Seventy percent said a structured re-onboarding programme would have made the transition easier. Only 27% got one. Kahoot sells learning software, so read it as a vendor survey, but the gap it describes is exactly what a few conversations would show you.\n\nThe workforce they return to is already stretched. Gallup's [State of the Global Workplace 2026](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx) puts global engagement at 20% for 2025, the lowest since 2020, and manager engagement at 22%, down from 27% a year earlier. The managers who must hold a team together after a cut are, on average, not in a strong place to do it.\n\nHow people judge the process matters more than most leaders expect. A [meta-analysis of 37 samples and 11,256 people](https://repub.eur.nl/pub/22247) (van Dierendonck and Belschak-Jacobs, British Journal of Management, 2012) found a positive link between perceived fairness and commitment to the employer (ρ = 0.40) for both leavers and survivors. For survivors, procedural fairness, meaning whether the reasons were explained accurately and the decision felt consistent, mattered more than distributive fairness, and fairness mattered more when cuts were aimed at profit than at economic necessity. You cannot manage a perception you have not measured.\n\nThe cost of not asking is quiet. Survivors rarely announce a decision to leave. They narrow their effort, stop volunteering and update a CV. By the time regretted attrition shows up in your dashboard, the best explanation you have is an exit interview, and the fix is a retention offer instead of a workload decision.\n\n## What good looks like\n\nTreat this as listening research, not a pulse check. A pulse survey tells you that confidence dropped from 7.1 to 5.8. It cannot tell you that the drop comes from one team that inherited a customer escalation queue nobody has agreed to reduce.\n\n**Ask three questions underneath every question: safety, load, truth.** Survivors are working out whether their own job is safe, how much of the cut work has landed on them, and whether they believe what leadership told them. Every question you write should serve one of the three. If it serves none, cut it.\n\n**Wait about ten days, then go.** The first days after an announcement produce rehearsed answers and shock. If you wait a month, the new workload has hardened into normal and people have stopped objecting to it. Open wave one at day 10 and keep it open for ten days. This is a practitioner judgement, not a studied optimum, so move it a few days if your notice periods or consultation dates demand.\n\n**Run two waves with identical questions.** Wave one tells you what to fix. Wave two, around day 60, tells you whether the fix landed. Changing the questions between waves wastes the comparison.\n\n![Timeline of a layoff survivor interview round: draft the guide, wait for the shock to settle, run wave one, read out, act, repeat at day 60](/visuals/layoff-survivor-interview-timeline/layoff-survivor-interview-timeline.png \"The round counted back from the announcement, about 75 days end to end · Koji\")\n\n**Use this sampling rule.** It is Koji's recommendation for qualitative work, not a statistical formula:\n\n- Fewer than 60 people left: invite everyone.\n- 60 to 500: invite everyone on the teams that lost people, and a random third of the rest. Aim for 30 to 40 finished interviews across at least four segments.\n- More than 500: aim for 15 finished interviews per segment, across five to eight segments by function and exposure.\n- Never report a segment with fewer than 8 finished interviews.\n\n**Segment by what happened to the person, not by grade.** The segment that matters is exposure: lost teammates and absorbed their work, lost teammates and had work reduced, nobody left but priorities changed, or largely untouched. Add one short parallel round for the managers who delivered the news. They are survivors too, and they often carry the most.\n\n**Ask for the last event, not for a rating of the company.** \"How do you feel about leadership?\" gets a polite answer. \"Tell me about the last conversation you had with your manager about your own future here\" gets a story, and the story shows you what to change.\n\n**Common mistakes**\n\n- Sending the link from line managers. Leadership should send it, with a plain statement of who will see what.\n- Asking for name, team and tenure together. Small groups become identifiable and the answers get short and polite.\n- Using the study to defend the decision. Your job is to hear it, not to correct it.\n- Listening and saying nothing back. If you will not act on workload, say so, and say what you will share and when.\n- Skipping the managers who gave the notices.\n- Running wave one only. You will not know whether the fixes worked.\n\n## How to set up layoff survivor interviews in Koji\n\nKoji has no dedicated layoff template. The closest start in the dashboard's template gallery is Engagement Pulse Interviews: open it and replace the questions with the guide below. Text interviews are available on every plan. Voice interviews need the Interviews plan or Enterprise. A text interview costs 1 credit and a voice interview costs 3, and only interviews with a quality score of 3 or more use credits. A new account starts with 10 free credits, enough to preview the study and run a small first group.\n\n1. **Start a study from one sentence.** On the home screen, paste the brief from the guide below. Koji drafts a research brief you can edit.\n2. **Add the questions** from the guide and set the types. Use a 1 to 10 scale where you want a number to compare across waves, and single choice where you want counts by segment. The [structured questions guide](/docs/structured-questions-guide) lists the types.\n3. **Ask for exposure once.** Add one single choice question for the segment (\"Which best describes your team now?\"). Leave out grade, tenure and location unless you will act on them.\n4. **Make anonymity real.** Under the study's Customize settings, switch off the pre-interview lead form so no name or email is requested, use the Anonymous badge with your own wording, and share one generic link. The badge is a label on the welcome page. What makes the study anonymous is that you collect no identifiers. The [anonymous employee research guide](/docs/anonymous-employee-research-ai-interviews) walks through it.\n5. **Set guardrails and context.** Add guardrails so the interviewer does not discuss named colleagues, who was selected or severance terms, as covered in the [guardrails guide](/docs/setting-interview-guardrails). Upload the all-hands message or memo as a context file so follow-up questions can refer to what people were actually told.\n6. **Choose text, voice or both.** Text suits a distributed team and anyone wary of being recorded. Voice suits people who would rather talk than type. Let people pick.\n7. **Preview, then send from leadership.** Take the interview yourself on the Preview tab, which does not count as a response. Send the link from the CEO or CHRO, set a response limit, and close it after ten days.\n8. **Read the report.** Themes, counts and supporting quotes build as interviews arrive. In Europe, bring your works council in before launch; see [works councils and employee research](/docs/works-council-employee-research).\n\n![Koji question editor showing open ended, scale and single choice questions with follow-up settings](/email/shots/shot-question-types.jpg \"Mix open questions with a 1 to 10 scale and a single choice segment question\")\n\n## Copy this interview guide\n\nPaste this into any tool. Each question has a type and one follow-up probe.\n\n**Brief to paste into Koji's \"What do you want to research?\" box:** \"How do the people who kept their jobs after our layoffs feel about their job security, the work they have taken on and the explanation they were given, so leadership can act in the next 30 days?\"\n\n![Framework of the three questions layoff survivors are answering: is my job safe, what work landed on me, do I believe what I was told](/visuals/safety-load-truth-layoff-survivor-framework/safety-load-truth-layoff-survivor-framework.png \"Every question in the guide serves one of three things survivors are working out · Koji\")\n\n**Opening line:** \"Thanks for doing this. We are talking to people across the company about the last few weeks. Nobody here will see your name, and there are no right answers.\"\n\n1. **Safety (open).** \"Think back to the day you heard about the layoffs. Walk me through that day.\" Probe: \"Who told you, and what did you do right after?\"\n2. **Exposure (single choice).** \"Which best describes your team now? We lost people and I took on some of their work / We lost people and some work was dropped / Nobody left but priorities changed / Mostly unchanged.\" Probe: \"What changed first in your week?\"\n3. **Load (open).** \"What are you doing now that someone else did before?\" Probe: \"What did you stop doing to make room, and who agreed to that?\"\n4. **Load (1 to 10 scale).** \"How clear are you about what to prioritise now?\" Probe: \"What would move that up by two points?\"\n5. **Truth (1 to 10 scale).** \"How closely do the reasons you were given for the layoffs match what you see happening?\" Probe: \"What did you see that made you pick that number?\"\n6. **Safety (open).** \"Tell me about the last conversation with your manager about your own future here. What was said?\" Probe: \"What did you want to hear?\"\n7. **Safety (single choice).** \"Over the next six months, which is closest? I plan to stay / I would leave for a good offer / I have started looking / I am not sure.\" Probe: \"What would move you one step towards staying?\"\n8. **Truth (open).** \"If you could change one thing about how the next 30 days are handled, what would it be?\"\n\n**Closing:** \"Is there anything I did not ask that you want leadership to know?\"\n\n## What you get\n\nKoji's report builds from the conversations, and each finding opens to the quotes behind it.\n\n![Koji report summary with a side panel of supporting participant quotes behind one finding](/email/shots/shot-evidence-panel.jpg \"Every finding opens to the quotes behind it, so the readout is not your opinion\")\n\n- **A workload map.** Which segments absorbed work, what they stopped doing and who approved it. This is the list your executive team can actually decide on.\n- **A trust gap.** The scale answer to question 5 by segment, with the quotes that explain a low score.\n- **Risk clusters.** The share in each segment who chose \"started looking\" or \"would leave for a good offer\". It points to teams, not individuals.\n- **The real manager questions.** Use the wording to build the manager briefing.\n- **A wave comparison.** Run the same guide at day 60. The report history keeps each version.\n\nA usable sequence: a one-page readout for the executive team at day 21, a \"what we are stopping\" decision by day 30, a manager briefing with real questions, and a message back to staff saying what changed.\n\n## The same playbook elsewhere\n\n\"Ask the people left holding the change\" carries over. Customer success teams run it as [exit and churn interviews](/blog/customer-exit-interviews-guide-2026) and as check-ins on accounts after an acquisition. Private equity operating partners use it in the [100-day customer baseline](/blog/100-day-customer-baseline-pe-playbook). Inside HR, the two-wave pattern is the same one used in [pay transparency research](/blog/pay-transparency-employee-research-hr-playbook). For the longer view of retention, see the [employee retention research guide](/docs/employee-retention-research-guide).\n\n## Why Koji for layoff survivor interviews\n\n![Table comparing pulse surveys, skip-levels and one-to-ones, an outside consultant and Koji for layoff survivor research](/visuals/layoff-survivor-research-methods-compared/layoff-survivor-research-methods-compared.png \"How the realistic options compare on what an HR lead needs after a layoff · Koji\")\n\nYour realistic alternatives are a pulse survey from the engagement platform you already own, skip-level meetings and manager one-to-ones, and an outside consultant. Each has a place. A survey is quick and good for tracking a number. Skip-levels build trust when it already exists. A consultant brings judgement and legal context. Each struggles in the same place: people tell the truth about job security and leadership to someone with no say in their future.\n\n- **The interviewer is not their boss.** Participants talk to an AI moderator with no stake in their job, so saying \"I don't believe the reasons\" is easier.\n- **It follows up.** When someone gives a 3 out of 10 on clarity, the interviewer asks what changed. A survey cannot.\n- **Same questions everywhere.** Differences between segments come from the people, not from who ran the session.\n- **Numbers and quotes together.** Scale and single choice questions give counts by segment next to the quotes.\n- **Quality control and a safe preview.** Each interview gets a quality score from 1 to 5, and thin conversations do not use credits or reach the report. The [access controls guide](/docs/research-data-access-controls-audit-trail) covers who on your team sees the data.\n\nIf you already run a survey platform, see [Culture Amp alternatives](/blog/culture-amp-alternatives-2026), [Lattice alternatives](/blog/lattice-alternatives-2026) and [surveys versus interviews](/blog/survey-vs-interview-when-to-use).\n\n## Questions you might have about AI interviews\n\n**Will survivors believe it is anonymous?** Only if the design backs the promise. Switch off the lead form, share one generic link, collect the exposure question and nothing narrower, and never report a group under eight. The Anonymous badge makes the promise visible, and the setup makes it true.\n\n**Do we need works council approval?** In Germany and several other countries, possibly, and that is a question for your counsel. In the EU, [Council Directive 98/59/EC](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1998/59/oj/eng) already requires consultation with workers' representatives on collective redundancies, with national rules on top. A survivor study is not that consultation and does not replace it. Tell the council about it early; the [works council guide](/docs/works-council-employee-research) explains the design points that make agreement easier.\n\n**Will an AI feel too cold after something this painful?** Participants choose text or voice, the welcome page says what is and is not collected, and you can take the interview yourself in Preview first. Some people find it easier to be blunt with a moderator who cannot repeat it to their manager.\n\n## When Koji may not be the right fit\n\nIf you need a statistically representative headcount-wide measure, send a survey and use interviews to explain it. If a team has fewer than about eight people left, any segment report would expose individuals, so talk to them in person. If affected employees are in a live dispute or selection challenge, take legal advice before running research. And if leadership will not act on or share back what it hears, do not ask: a listening round with no response teaches people that speaking up does nothing.\n\n## Metrics to track\n\n- Completion rate and quality scores by segment.\n- Clarity of priorities (question 4), wave one against wave two.\n- Match between the stated reasons and what people see (question 5), by segment.\n- Share choosing \"started looking\" or \"would leave for a good offer\".\n- Regretted attrition at 90 and 180 days, by segment.\n- Number of work-stopping decisions made within 30 days.\n- Days from fieldwork close to executive readout.\n\n## FAQ\n\n**How many survivors should I interview?**\nBelow 60 people, invite everyone. From 60 to 500, aim for 30 to 40 finished interviews across at least four segments. Above 500, aim for 15 per segment. Do not report a segment with fewer than 8.\n\n**When should I run layoff survivor interviews?**\nOpen wave one about ten days after the announcement and keep it open for ten days. Run wave two about day 60 with identical questions.\n\n**Should the managers who delivered the news be included?**\nYes, as a separate short round. They carry the questions and the pushback, and their view differs from their teams'.\n\n**Which Koji plan do I need?**\nText interviews work on every plan. Voice interviews need the Interviews plan or Enterprise. Check current plans on the pricing page.\n\n**Is this legal advice?**\nNo. It describes a research method. Your counsel should confirm consultation duties and works council requirements in your country.\n\n## Start your survivor study\n\nOpen the dashboard, start from Engagement Pulse Interviews or paste the brief above, and be live by day 10. See how other [HR and People teams use Koji](/for/hr), or browse every playbook in the [HR use-case library](/use-cases/hr).\n","category":"Use Cases","lastModified":"2026-10-25T07:50:10.684334+00:00","metaTitle":"Layoff Survivor Interviews: HR Playbook","metaDescription":"Run a two-wave interview round with the employees who stayed after a layoff: timeline, sampling rule, a copyable guide and setup in Koji.","keywords":["layoff survivor interviews","layoff survivor syndrome","post layoff employee feedback","restructuring employee listening","layoff survivor interview questions","HR playbook layoffs"],"aiSummary":"A playbook for HR leaders on interviewing the employees who stay after a layoff or restructuring. It sets out why survivor perceptions of fairness, workload and job security matter, a two-wave timeline starting about ten days after the announcement, a sampling rule by headcount, a full eight-question interview guide with probes, and how to run it anonymously with AI-moderated interviews in Koji.","aiKeywords":["layoff survivor interviews","layoff survivor syndrome","post-layoff employee research","restructuring employee listening","survivor interview questions","AI-moderated interviews","HR playbook"],"aiContentType":"guide","faqItems":[{"answer":"Below 60 people, invite everyone. From 60 to 500, aim for 30 to 40 finished interviews across at least four segments. Above 500, aim for 15 per segment. Do not report a segment with fewer than 8.","question":"How many survivors should I interview?"},{"answer":"Open wave one about ten days after the announcement and keep it open for ten days. Run wave two about day 60 with identical questions so you can compare.","question":"When should I run layoff survivor interviews?"},{"answer":"Yes, as a separate short round. They carry the questions and the pushback from their teams, and their view differs from the people they manage.","question":"Should the managers who delivered the news be included?"},{"answer":"Text interviews work on every plan. Voice interviews need the Interviews plan or Enterprise. Only interviews with a quality score of 3 or more use credits.","question":"Which Koji plan do I need?"},{"answer":"No. It describes a research method. Your counsel should confirm consultation duties and works council requirements in your country.","question":"Is this legal advice?"}],"relatedTopics":["layoff survivors","HR research","employee listening"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}