What happened
On 3 November, Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins told staff that the design company is reorganising. Her note says 1,271 people, or 22% of Canva, will be affected. Some will get new roles. Some will be asked to move to a central hub, with Sydney becoming the main base for more product teams. Others will leave. Canva hasn't said how many people fall into each group.
The reason given is slower growth: the note says growth slowed this year for the first time in a decade, and that “small changes won't be enough.” Canva is merging its Product, Growth and Platform teams into one product organisation, cutting layers, and asking most hybrid staff to be in the office two to three days a week from January. A Canva spokesperson told Fortune the roles aren't being replaced by AI.
The exit package is what went viral. According to the note, everyone leaving gets:
- At least six months' salary, including statutory entitlements, in every country.
- Twelve months of healthcare cover where Canva already provides it, plus a year of its employee assistance programme.
- Coaching, interview practice, a year of LinkedIn Premium, and an opt-in alumni directory shared with investors and partners.
- Their company MacBook to keep, and the one-year vesting cliff removed for people who joined in the past year.
- The chance to apply for a US$10,000 grant to start something of their own, with no equity taken.
India is part of it. Storyboard18 reports that Canva's India content lead, who built its local design team, was among those leaving. Canva hasn't shared an India headcount.
The case
You're the HR head of a Bengaluru software company with 2,000 employees. Growth has slowed, and the CEO has decided to merge teams. About 300 roles will go. Everyone has seen Canva's package on LinkedIn. The CEO asks: should we match it? Design the exit package and tell me what it costs.
1Clarify
- How many people actually leave, and how many move or change roles? Canva's 1,271 mixes all three, and each group needs different support.
- What does the law and each contract require, location by location? That's the floor. Canva's six months already includes statutory pay.
- How much cash can we spend? A package we can't afford just moves the problem to next year.
- Whose trust matters most here? The people leaving, the 1,700 staying, or the people we'll want to hire next year.
2Structure
Split the package into what leavers get and how the exit is run:
- Money: severance pay, and how it varies with tenure or level.
- Security: health cover, unvested stock, and anything else people lose on their last day.
- The next job: coaching, referrals, an alumni directory, keeping the laptop.
- The process: who tells people, how fast, and what the people who stay hear.
3Analyse
How generous is Canva's package?
Fortune cites a 2025 Challenger, Gray & Christmas report that put the average tech-industry severance in 2024 at 11.2 weeks of pay. Six months is about 26 weeks, so Canva's minimum is roughly 2.3 times that (26 ÷ 11.2 ≈ 2.3).
The tech average is a US-based figure reported by Fortune. Canva's six months applies in every country.
What would each option cost us?
Assumptions, all made up for the case:
- 300 people leave, with an average salary of ₹1.5 lakh a month and an average tenure of three years.
- Non-cash support costs about ₹45,000 a person: ₹20,000 for a year of health cover and ₹25,000 for coaching. Laptops are already paid for.
Now cost three options:
- Lean: two months' pay, no extras. 300 × ₹1.5 lakh × 2 = ₹9 crore.
- Tiered: three months, plus half a month per year of service, capped at six months. At three years' tenure that's 4.5 months: 300 × ₹1.5 lakh × 4.5 = ₹20.25 crore. Add ₹1.35 crore of extras (300 × ₹45,000) for about ₹21.6 crore.
- Canva-style: six months for all. 300 × ₹1.5 lakh × 6 = ₹27 crore, plus the same ₹1.35 crore, for about ₹28.4 crore.
Example numbers for a made-up company, not Canva's costs.
Does generosity pay for itself?
The usual argument is that a fair exit keeps good people from quitting afterwards. Test it. Say replacing one good employee costs six months' pay, or ₹9 lakh (an assumption). One extra percentage point of resignations among the 1,700 who stay is 17 people, which costs 17 × ₹9 lakh = ₹1.53 crore.
- Going from lean to Canva-style costs ₹19.4 crore more. It pays back only if the lean option would push about 13 extra points of resignations (19.4 ÷ 1.53 ≈ 12.7).
- Going from lean to tiered costs ₹12.6 crore more, which needs about 8 points (12.6 ÷ 1.53 ≈ 8.2).
Both are big jumps. So retention alone won't justify a generous package. The rest of the case rests on things that are harder to count: your reputation with future hires, the risk of disputes, and how hard the people who stay will work.
4Recommend
I wouldn't match Canva's six-month floor. I'd offer the tiered package: three months' pay plus half a month per year of service, capped at six, with a year of health cover, coaching and the laptop. It costs about ₹21.6 crore against ₹28.4 crore.
First, it rewards the people who gave us the most years, which feels fairer than one flat number. Second, the extras cost us little but matter a lot to someone job-hunting. Third, it saves about ₹6.8 crore that the business needs to fix the growth problem.
The risk is that staff compare us with Canva's headline and call us stingy. So I'd explain the formula openly and brief managers before the news goes out. Then I'd track resignations among the people who stay for six months.