Compare Providers
Download our outplacement comparison sheet
Request Pricing
Compare our rates to other providers
Like all industries, IT firms are sometimes rocked by mandatory layoffs. It’s just a fact of running business. To make sure these events go off without a hitch, you should make sure you have a strong plan in place. This is where IT outplacement comes in.
Protect Your Brand
We say this all of the time: layoffs are bad for your corporate brand.
There’s no way around this. The public will generally see layoffs as a sign that something went wrong financially in your company. While this may or may not actually be true, public opinion doesn’t care.
So, when you go to layoff staff members for whatever reason, you need to make sure that you are doing everything in your power to negate the bad press your company might accrue.
One of the best things to do is to make sure the outbound employees know that they are taken care of and that you aren’t simply throwing them out on the street.
By providing the best outplacement services, you show your staff that you care about their well-being and are willing to provide a support system for them during this stressful job transition.
This does two things: it gets your employee back to work by offering them a pathway to success and it also helps negate some of the harsh feelings they might be feeling when let go. By quelling these negative feelings, you help reduce the chance that they will resent your business and hurt your brand.
So, not only is IT outplacement the right thing to offer outgoing employees – you do, after all, want them to succeed – it’s also a way to curb some of the bad press a layoff evokes.
Reduce Stress Across the Board
Layoffs are stressful for everyone involved, including the staff members who remain working for you. There “survivors” might have watched one of their friends get let go, and they might be wondering if their job is safe.
The outplacement process helps reduce the stress of a layoff for these individuals because it shows them that if they were to be let go, they would have a support system to lean against.
Obviously, outplacement also reduces the stress felt by the staff members let go, too. A severance payment can only go so far and is generally a patch over the problem instead of a long term solution. For that, outplacement is the only option.
What about you, though?
Well, by making sure your employees are leaving with a strong support system to back them up on their journey, you can feel more at ease about having to let them go. For HR, layoffs are ultra-stressful. Not only do you have to be the one to let the people go, you also get blamed for much of the process even if you have nothing to do with the cause of the event.
Outplacement, therefore, can make it a lot easier for you to hold these meetings and also lend your staffers a hand as they make their exit.
Outplacement Providers and Thought Leadership
While the actual outplacement service is the reason why you hire a firm, they should also serve as thought leaders in the HR space, providing you with valuable knowledge about trends in the community.
For IT outplacement, this likely means understanding the most technologically-advanced resources your department can be using. After all, as an industry where tech is at the forefront, your HR department shouldn’t be left behind.
What will this actually do for me, though?
It’s easy: having a more advanced HR department will let you focus on what matters: your overall company.
Outplacement firms should – if they’re worth their salt – be at the forefront of technology. This is because the job market lies at the cutting edge. Consider how much impact tech has had on job searching over the last decade. It’s easy to see how firms have been forced to stay current in today’s landscape.
In fact, a good way to tell if you are using the right outplacement firm is to look at how they use technology to offer their services. Do they use online platforms to bring their services to anywhere in the world? Do they understand how to maneuver through the digital job market? How well do they couple technology with one-on-one coaching? These are all important questions you should ask yourself when shopping around.
The good news is that they keep up to date with many HR technologies as well, giving you a bigger boost that just offering a way for you to place outgoing employees.
This is a good segway to our next point:
IT Outplacement Firms: Strategic Partners
The final reason why you should be using an IT outplacement provider is that they can – and should – be a strong strategic partner that you can grow alongside.
Layoffs are a fact of life. If you have a firm on retainer – Careerminds is one of the only firms that doesn’t charge a retainer fee, by the way, just throwing it out there – you can have reductions in force when you need to without all of the stress that typically comes along with them.
They should also be there to support your other workforce transitioning needs. For example, outplacement firms can also handle retirement lifestyle planning and leadership development, too. Anything that has to do with staffing, your outplacement provider should be able to handle so you can focus on the bigger picture.
If all of this makes sense to you, we’d love to be your IT outplacement partner. Schedule a demo to see what we can offer you today.
In need of outplacement assistance?
At Careerminds, we care about people first. That’s why we offer personalized talent management solutions for every level at lower costs, globally.