Outplacement for Workers Gets Upsized by Careerminds

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled “Assistance for Laid off Workers Gets Downsized” which is creating quite a stir in the outplacement world. The article featured a laid off regional sales manager who received very little outplacement from his former employer that was poorly executed. The backdrop is companies today are shrinking human resource budgets, which is forcing the large traditional outplacement firms to shrink their outplacement programs in order to be competitive.

Reporter, Lauren Weber wrote, “the outplacement industry, which once thrived in tough times, is under pressure. Revenues are being squeezed as contract values with employers fall and cover fewer services, and a host of online upstarts—which offer Web-only career assistance for a fraction of the cost of traditional packages—force providers to compete at lower price points.”

Ms. Weber cites Careerminds in the radio interview portion of the article as one of those low-cost providers, but what she failed to mention is the level of service is not being sacrificed. Careerminds has worked really hard to develop a technology fueled program that works together with high touch career consulting. Because of our delivery model, we’re able to work with employees until they’re placed. Our participants have no time limits and no limit to the number of career consulting hours they receive. This is a real game changer in the outplacement industry, because for years outplacement programs have been limited by access and consulting. As traditional outplacement firms are stripping services, Careerminds is increasing and up-sizing outplacement benefits for workers.

The article continues to talk about how traditional outplacement providers say they are investing significantly in web-based tools. I’d be very curious to know how these firms are going to shift from being so traditional in thinking to becoming a best in class technology fueled outplacement offering, as it seems they are already having trouble making the switch as evidenced by the article. A former LHH career coach said at one point during his engagement with LHH, he was allotted 20 hours a week to service 200 clients.

In the end, the frustrated sales manager in the article who received little outplacement really would have been better served using Careerminds. 

Raymond Lee

Raymond Lee is the President of Careerminds, a global outplacement company based in Wilmington, Delaware. He has over 20 years of human resource, outplacement, and career consulting experience. He has his bachelor’s in psychology and holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Louisiana Tech University. He is active in SHRM and ATD. Raymond’s been featured on SiriusXM Business Radio, CareerTalk, and the Wall Street Journal and he’s published a book titled, Clocking Out: A Stress-Free Guide to Career Transitions.