Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons underlying voluntary redundancy schemes (VRSs) in academia and their subsequent implications from an organisational and field-level perspective. Both scientific and practitioner-oriented literature tend to privilege an individual-level focus. While some literature suggests that financial constraints are the main reason for VRSs, little is known about how managerial priorities shape VRSs and their effects. Thus, a multiple case study is designed around the reasons for going beyond the need to pursue financial cuts. Once we analyse the rationale for VRSs, we discuss how the broader human resource management (HRM) strategy interplays with VRSs. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on the multiple case study approach developed by Yin. The selection of cases is based on theoretical sampling according to the “Mission group”: eight United Kingdom (UK) universities are selected to build a dataset that comprises 118 open-ended interviews with HR managers, senior and middle managers and academics from different disciplines and stages of the academic career. Freidson’s theoretical framework for the formalisation process and professional control is used to support data analysis and to understand the rationale underlying VRSs and its impacts (both manifest and latent). Findings Although VRSs are usually justified by financial pressure, the findings show that they also enact a latent function, instilling a more compliant adherence to the new organisational strategy and market culture that universities in the UK are now induced to follow. This outcome fits with contemporary definitions of “employers' leadership”, leaving the control of the profession to an elite decoupled from the everyday work of academics. However, VRSs often appear to be not well positioned within the institutional HRM strategy. Thus, some best practices aimed at aligning the use of VRSs with broader HRM practices are suggested. Research limitations/implications Despite a considerable amount of data, this paper suffers from a lack of involvement of experts, such as union lay representatives. Moreover, institutional fine-grained key performance indicator (KPI) data and information about the ex-ante and ex-post profiles of staff subject to VRSs would enrich the evidence on the topic. Implications rely upon universities under broadly speaking neoliberal funding criteria. However, implications may be analogous for any HRM practice insisting on professional bureaucracy under neoliberal rule. Practical implications The main practical implication for both scholars and practitioners is positioning institutional VRS into a wider and more coherent HRM strategy. This paper aims to raise awareness of the use of VRSs and to show that VRSs also entail a latent function. Latent functions, in turn, may be functional or dysfunctional. These outcomes should be weighed against broader HRM and institutional strategies. Universities and similar organisations may plan VRSs with more accuracy and with more awareness of the overall effects, ideally incentivising universities to (1) minimise large-scale VRSs and (2) optimise the profiling of employees subject to such schemes. Social implications There are social implications as far as practitioners in the field may learn to minimise the use of VRSs, limiting the number of occasions and the number of staff who may experience such practices instead of other HRM alternatives. VRSs are to be reckoned as one of the most stressful practices that employees may pass through in a working lifetime. Originality/value The literature overlooks VRSs, especially from an organisational perspective. The empirical evidence of this paper allows for a unique reading of the reasons underlying VRSs, together with their main implications for the organisation and its HRM strategy. Financial pressure typically triggers motivation to use VRSs, although such a driver is not necessarily the main or the only one. VRSs might also be chosen as a last-resort action to shape the professional core of universities, mostly to reduce such core under corporate-like relationships. The paper also finds a variety of institutional formulations of VRSs within broader HRM practices.