SaddleUp! SaddleUp!
SaddleUp!

Redundancy is a shock. You shouldn't have to process it alone.

A free, one-to-one call with an experienced business leader who has been where you are — either as the person made redundant, or as the person who had to make the decision. No fee. No advice. Nothing to sell you.

Request a call Become a Saddler
Our vision

To reduce the personal and psychological impact of redundancy — understand the circumstances, give hope, show respect, and encourage meaningful, forward-facing steps.

7thYear running
3,500+Calls taken
29Specialist areas
$0Cost, always

How it started

One LinkedIn post, written while making dinner.

In 2020, after hearing about a wave of lay-offs, I put out a quick post to my LinkedIn network offering a listening ear and a free conversation. By 7am the next morning it had 50,000 views, shares from all over the world, and 70 requests for a call.

That's a lot of social media action for someone who specialises in luxury appliances.

I had no idea complete strangers would want to talk to me. The offer was simply that if you'd just been told your role was going, you weren't on your own. By the end of that evening I'd done three calls and was booked out until October. By mid-August I'd done more than fifty.

Some people were furious and needed somewhere to put it — they can't shout at their family, but they can have a go at me. Some were pragmatic and just wanted an impartial ear. Every one of them gave me more than I gave them.

I'm not a psychologist or a counsellor, and I don't give advice. What I do is listen, and help people find their own thinking, their own plan and their own next small step. That isn't a complex skill — which is why it can be shared.

Six years on, our Saddlers have taken more than 3,500 of those calls between them.

— David Woollcott, founder

The shape of it

What SaddleUp! is, and what it isn't.

Being clear about the second list is what makes the first one safe.

What SaddleUp! is

  • A peer-to-peer, human-to-human call, where a Saddler listens to someone in roughly their industry who has just been made redundant.
  • A place where experiences and insights get shared, empathy is shown, and a relationship of mutual respect, encouragement and hope is built.
  • A chance to have your past roles, LinkedIn profile and CV looked over, with a few hints to get started and become slowly future-focused.
  • Evidence that leaders across a wide range of industries care about their people and understand human frailty.
  • Respectful of companies that have had to make genuinely difficult decisions.

What SaddleUp! isn't

  • Medical or psychological support, and it should never be presented as such.
  • A revenue generator. We don't charge, and we don't refer you to anyone who does.
  • A pool for recruiters.
  • A place for fixed advice or steered conversations. Your plan has to be yours.

The model

The post-redundancy rebuild

Redundancy is a shock and an emotional experience, even if you saw it coming. The loss of control, livelihood, routine and your network of colleagues is confronting, and it can be overwhelming. This is the simple process we work through together.

ONE

Understand what happened

Confirm the facts and the circumstances. Process them — but don't dwell on what you couldn't control.

TWO

Share your thoughts

Talk to friends, family, peers, support groups, career experts or SaddleUp! You are not alone.

FOUR

Take action

When the time is right, take steps in the right direction. Stay positive and confident.

THREE

Plan and decide

Believe it or not, you have options now. Don't rush. Determine your value, write down your goals, and never underestimate your worth.

It's a loop, not a ladder. Most people go round it more than once, and that's normal.

The role

What a Saddler does.

A Saddler is an experienced professional who gives their time to someone at the sharpest point of a redundancy — ideally within the first month, and the sooner the better.

The job is not to fix anything. It's to take the sting out of the shock, give a person the space to think and talk, and set the stage for them to arrive at their own answers.

What Saddlers do

  • Take the sting out of the shock, early — up to a month after the news, preferably much sooner.
  • Provide human-to-human time and space to think and talk.
  • Set the stage for the person to come up with their own solutions.
  • Share their own stories of disappointment, if the conditions allow — remembering it's about them, not you.
  • Show real examples of where redundancy has turned out to be a benefit.
  • Review skills and knowledge, and remind people of capabilities they've stopped seeing.

What Saddlers don't do

  • Criticise the company, the industry or the individuals involved — even when the process was brutal.
  • Offer medical or psychological advice. We are not doctors, psychologists or counsellors.
  • Lead the conversation towards their own solution.
  • Refer people to agencies, businesses or friends, unless asked directly.
  • Tender or promote their own business or services, directly or indirectly.
  • Bring religious or political bias into the conversation.

The people

29 specialist areas. Real names against every one.

Saddlers are matched by sector wherever we can, so you're talking to someone who knows your world without needing it explained. Find yours below, and choose the person you’d like to contact on the form.

The method

Mostly, we ask questions.

Saddlers work from a shared set of open questions. Nobody is handed a script, but everybody is pointed at the same idea: the person on the other end already has more of the answer than they think.

What advice would you give to a colleague in your situation?
What would a successful outcome actually look like?
Where are you now, in relation to where you want to be?
What has stopped you from doing more?
What would happen if you did nothing?
What's the hardest part of that, for you?
On a scale of one to ten, what's your commitment to doing it? What would make it a ten?
What could I do to support you?

Volunteer

Could you be a Saddler?

The ask is a little of your time, at times you choose. We handle the matching; you handle the conversation.

You must have

  • At least ten years' professional experience in an industry, trade or profession — paid or unpaid.
  • Exceptional listening ability, pride in your empathy, and a belief that human altruism benefits individuals, society, the economy and yourself.
  • The ability to connect with someone quickly and easily.
  • The ability to ask open questions.
  • An understanding that redundancy is difficult and emotionally draining for most people.
  • A decent internet connection for video calls — or a phone, if video isn't your thing.

Ideally you also have

  • Been made redundant, made others redundant, or had a career bump somewhere along the way — first-hand experience of external disorientation.
  • Multiple perspectives, personal and professional.
  • Coaching experience, training or qualifications.
  • Real depth in your industry.
Put your name forward

Resources

Things worth reading, whether or not you call us.

None of this replaces a conversation with someone who knows you. It's a decent place to start on a bad afternoon.

Self-compassion

Treating yourself the way you'd treat a friend having a hard time — instead of ignoring the pain with a stiff upper lip, stopping to say "this is really difficult right now," and asking how you can care for yourself in this moment. Kristin Neff's work is the best starting point.

self-compassion.org

Resilience

The ability to recover from adversity feeling more capable of coping than before. Both of these have practical resource centres rather than platitudes.

mind.org.uk — developing resilience thewellbeingproject.co.uk

SHED — sleep, hydration, exercise, diet

The four things that are easiest to let go of when your routine disappears, and the four that make the most difference to how you cope. A simple model for holding the basics together.

The SHED method

Redundancy, practically

Coping with the process itself, and the mechanics of what comes next.

Mind — coping with redundancy Personal Career Management — facing redundancy

If things feel worse than difficult. SaddleUp! is not a medical or psychological service, and a Saddler is not a counsellor. If you're struggling, please talk to your GP or one of these, any time:

Australia · Lifeline 13 11 14 (24 hours) · Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 · Medicare Mental Health 1800 595 212
United Kingdom · Samaritans 116 123 (24 hours) · Mind

Get in touch

Let's have a conversation.

Whether you've just had the news, or you'd like to be the person who takes the call, tell us a little about yourself. Choose your specialist area and the Saddler you’d like to speak with. We’ll prepare an email for you to review and send, so you can arrange a time together.

A first conversation is free. There’s no pressure to have it all worked out before you get in touch.

Take the first step

Who would you like to talk to?

Choose your area, then your Saddler. Their email address will appear below.

Choose a specialist area and a Saddler to prepare your email.

How your information is used

This form prepares an email in your own email app. Your name, email, optional phone number, preferred contact method and message are included in the draft. You choose when to send it to your selected Saddler, who can use those details to respond. This website does not submit or store your enquiry. Your email provider handles the message when you send it.

Who's behind it

Started by someone who's been on both sides of the table.

David Woollcott founded SaddleUp! in 2020 while Managing Director of Fisher & Paykel in the UK. Over two decades he has led premium consumer and automotive businesses across the UK, Australia and New Zealand — most recently as Chief Executive of King Living — and has directly or indirectly recruited more than 300 people.

He has also been made redundant, and has made other people redundant. Both, in his words, are horrible and emotionally draining experiences that need supporting by peers, friends and family. That's the whole idea.

SaddleUp! is run by volunteers who give their time to support others through redundancy.

SaddleUp! on LinkedIn