[freemint]

There been some really good suggestions. There are two concerns you have to balance. The future prospects of the company for the remaining <50% with the urgent needs of the >50% leaving. If you spend to much that might endanger the other <50%. If >50% are paid to little that might encourage the <50% to leave (partially) too. There maybe some sweet spot however the management which put the company in this situation might not the best people to find that sweet spot. See in how far you can involve all your employees and their expertise in making these decisions.

Given that you have a firm pool of money that you can allocate which seems to be less than you are comfortable with look if you can grow them. C-Suite getting pay reductions is one thing that should happen for sure. There might be other ideas obvious to the people you employ. You as C-Suite are missing.

If possible create projections (like a month by month spread sheet) for the future of the company based on the success of projects (or however you make money), costs and so on. Show to your employees that that company has a future after the cut. Show what the managements plan leave for compensating the people you have to let go. Play that out. Show of the "no intervention" world projections. Show what it means to close the entire company, whether that leads to better or worse compensation. Then talk about the limits of the plan. What it didn't include and model. That it didn't account for people cutting their hours or reduce their own wage. People will know whether they will be let go in x days. That management will talk with everyone over the week and give an indication whether it is likely that they will be let go to collect pledges what pay cut they could accept. Whether they have any ideas to help the companies situation (cost cuttings, release monthly from last months). Whether they intended to leave the company anyway. Then management crunches the numbers using options for savings and makes a few proposals including one of closing the entire company. And have the people decide. Everyone is given a print out how each option will affect them one what the options mean company wide. Then people vote via the Condorcet method. In case there are ties. Management will have to indentify key grievances and create some variants to fix those in the tied plans and have a second vote that day. Another round of Condorcet to eliminate all untied ones. Then instant run off in case of more ties. Those options should come with a profit share in case surplus profit emerges where people who took cuts or left the company against their will get some payout.

I am sure it is to late to fully set that up now but if i had to do such a large cut that is what i would want done.