Purpose: This study explores responsible employment restructuring practices during crises and under normal business conditions.

Design/methodology/approach: This study employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method, to systematically assess various alternative factors and their relative importance in responsible employment restructuring. A mixed-methods approach was adopted to integrate the quantitative and qualitative techniques. The respondents were selected using purposive sampling. Primary data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed using AHP's 1–9 scale to enable pairwise comparisons of the restructuring criteria.

Findings: This study offers valuable insights into organisational restructuring decisions that navigate the complex balance between economic imperatives and employee well-being during crises and in stable business conditions.

Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to Human Resource Management (HRM) theory by advancing the understanding of responsible HRM, crisis-responsive HR strategies, responsible employment restructuring, and the application of decision science methods in HRM.

Practical implications: This study offers practical guidance for policymakers and HR practitioners on ethical, regulation-compliant restructuring decisions that protect employees while sustaining organisational interests. HR should adopt a balanced and empathetic approach, using transparent communication and trust-building to enhance organisational resilience. When applying robust decision-making tools such as AHP, HR must prioritise employee well-being through counselling, redeployment, and upskilling initiatives. Policymakers, strategists, and HR professionals should develop context-specific restructuring checklists, process models, and decision flowcharts. In stable conditions, HR decisions should emphasise long-term goals and employee development, whereas in crisis situations, HR must focus on critical operations while providing ethical and emotional support to employees.

Social implications: The study has greater social implications as the consequences of the restructuring decisions can affect mental health perception of fairness, leading to extreme emotional consequences. Hence, organisations with accountability must design the restructuring strategies contributing to healthy workplaces with sustainable employment practices.

Originality/value: The originality of the paper lies in its application of AHP for HR decision-making in restructuring, particularly in crisis periods and stable business conditions. It offers a novel contribution to HR theory by demonstrating how AHP can support decision-makers in systematically navigating the trade-offs involved in employee restructuring across diverse organisational contexts in different business situations.