Why Manufacturing Needs Outplacement?

Why manufacturing needs outplacement? More than 12 million Americans work in manufacturing. More than one fifth of U.S. employment is directly or indirectly related to the manufacturing field. And many manufacturing companies face an employee turnover rate of more than 20-30%.

When it comes to Human Resources, manufacturing can be a definite challenge. From dealing with unions to instilling safety regulations, taking care of employees in a factory is incredibly different than taking care of employees in an office. “You spend a lot of time on the floor,” says HR manager Stan Brewer in an article in HR Magazine. “In an office environment, if there’s a problem, employees come to you. In manufacturing, you go to them.”

Beyond the day to day work of HR managers in manufacturing lies the challenges of firing and hiring. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were approximately 240,000 hires and 237,000 separations in the manufacturing field in May 2015 alone. Many people are affected by such job movement, and many people can benefit from outplacement in such situations.

Announcing a layoff in a manufacturing company can cause outrage, unease, and instability. Instability can severely ruin a factory’s progress. But outplacement can help.

Outplacement services help companies make the reduction of their workforce as seamless as possible by helping to plan and execute successful transitions and guide employees from their former jobs through their unemployment and back into the workforce. Outplacement helps to relieve the stress of exiting employees while still sending a positive message to remaining workers and the community. With outplacement, HR professionals and employers can make sure they are giving each layoff the attention he or she deserves by providing him or her with an accessible, simple, and personalized path to the next opportunity. Outplacement makes everyone’s lives easier when it comes to a layoff.

In manufacturing, HR professionals can make the difficult task of making layoffs more manageable by using an outplacement service. With outplacement, the professionals can more easily manage large numbers of transitioning employees in the already complicated factory setting. Additionally, outplacement in manufacturing specifically may be helpful because of the skill sets of the people who work in the field. Many people who work in manufacturing may be used to hands on work as opposed to the tricky online and office-based communication assets necessary to search for, apply to and land a new job.

Manufacturing plays one of the largest roles in the U.S. economy. Within manufacturing, there are many challenges regarding optimization, safety, performance, and more. And with a constant flux of incoming and exiting employees, having an outplacement service available can help to make one part of the complexity of the manufacturing world a little bit simpler.

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.