It’s Time to Rethink How You Review Your Outplacement Provider
October 16, 2018 by Katie Lawrence
Outplacement providers have been doing their thing since the 70s; helping laid off employees get back to work. In our day-to-day here at Careerminds, speaking with HR professionals at some of the world’s most well-known and well-respected companies, we sometimes encounter organizations who have been with the same outplacement and career transition provider for over 20 years.
My first thought when I hear this is, “Man, that’s costing the company a lot of money.” My second thought is, “What career transition innovations have been shown to them over this time if the relationship is on autopilot?” And my third thought is, “I can appreciate the loyalty. But it’s time to benchmark.”
As a swamped HR professional, it is easy to say to any potential partner wanting to speak with you about a new service, “We already have that, we’re happy with it, we won’t be reviewing for a while,” but is that always in the best interest of the organization, your employees, and even you, the HR leader?
Time is precious, and HR has everything on their plate. You really do have your hands in every aspect of the organization, something many people (even CEOs) don’t realize, or acknowledge, which is exactly why it makes sense to take a look at something new.
Innovations in the outplacement space have taken longer to adopt than other aspects of the employee lifecycle. But if you take a look at improvements to HR process as a result of fresh technology, these investments and new partners have most likely saved you tons of time, which can result in soft and hard dollar savings to be reinvested in your budget and employees, as well as provide visibility into data, which enables you to make more insightful decisions about people and process.
So why is outplacement left in the cold when it comes time to review?
I mean, I get it to an extent.
Outplacement is not the sexy part of HR. We aren’t the company holiday party, or the new virtual awards and recognition system. But we are a huge aspect of company goodwill that enables you to maintain employer-of-choice status in your community and online.
And today, everyone is in charge of their employer’s brand. Offboarding your employees so that their exit is not a negative experience affects your recruiting, as studies show a drop in Glassdoor rating after layoffs occur and 3 out of 4 candidates take employer brand strength into account while reviewing a job offer.
What people say about their former company when they leave is important and has impact. That’s why it is time to benchmark your current outplacement vendor. Providing next-generational outplacement services with unlimited coaching until placement will actually help your former employees secure a new position making $10,000 more on average per year. It will also reduce your cost per program, as well as lower your SUI costs by $1,500 to $2,000 per employee.
You wouldn’t be using the same mobile phone you had 10 years ago, right? At the pace that technology has changed the world of work, its important to keep all employee-facing services and benefits aligned with how they will actually look for a job today.
Its time to take a look at Careerminds.
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.