Employers who decide to provide outplacement services choose to do so to assist their departing employees move forward positively, on to new opportunities, and help secure their next role. This is a strong indication of organisations who care about their workforce, employer brand and are genuinely committed to the highest levels of engagement and participation through a key element of the career lifecycle.
Outplacement or career transition services, (a nuance which I believe imbues more positivity) is a strategic and compassionate way to support employees who are transitioning out of the organisation. The well-wishing bond built up between an outgoing employee and the previous employer, through practical career support, is a strategic move for the person impacted and for the organisation itself. The exiting employee can leave with dignity, and this can also prevent exiting employees from resenting the organisation, protecting the employer brand.
However, it’s one thing to offer outplacement, but it’s another to inadvertently add insult to the injury of getting laid off, by not knowing the real value of what you are offering and how to make its inherent advantages be known. In this blog, I will share six practical tips for how you can drive engagement with career transition services and create an environment that can motivate your people to embrace or access the service on offer, thereby expediting a successful career transition and creating a legacy of good will.
Tip #1 – Don’t allow the process to clash with common sense
The potential value received from outplacement support can depend on the employee’s experience with their employer on the way out. If anyone who leaves your organisation can carry positive feelings with them, they may continue to cheer on the organisation from the sidelines. Let’s face it, in today’s digitalised world, personal and organisational reputations live on forever.
Well intended employee benefits like outplacement (career transition), can feel disingenuous to someone who has just lost their job, when the ‘process’ within an organisation overrides or clashes with common sense, sound judgement and the compassion to communicate effectively. Don’t let the process itself steal from others, the energy needed to drive or accept the change and come through it with a ‘sense of control’.
To achieve effective outcomes and engagement, is to balance the business needs and its processes, with ‘discipline, insights, wisdom, and poetry.’ Nothing less will do! There is an art to transform the redundancy challenge into opportunities for growth and resilience and minimise negative outcomes such as reputational risk. It is achieved by prioritising compassionate communication, legal compliance, and expertly managing transitions.
Tip #2 – Gentle Nudging can go a long way
It’s human nature to resist change because change can represent a ‘loss of control’. The unease associated with news of job loss can result in a wave of pushback or skepticism about the reasons given. However, often the reasons people resist change are not about the changes themselves, but rather the implications of the change. Emotionally charged by loss, an employee may choose to resist any help from the organisation that is letting go of them -perhaps their last bastion of control.
It’s common to feel anger towards an employer in the early stages of transition, which can be shown in refusal to engage with anything that is deemed to be from the employer. So, it’s important to invite positive energy in. A ‘gentle nudge’, (never coercion), can encourage a shift in behaviour that brings benefits. By changing the way choices are presented, a nudge urges individuals to make more favourable decisions for themselves. A nudge is helpful because it focuses on real human behavior while considering its irrational aspects. Focusing a little more on the “why” and “why not” questions might just provide the kinds of insights necessary to nudge the individual forward towards something that may provide them with a significant benefit and fast track their transition.
A call from an independent third party like deliberatepractice, can help an employee to access the service that they don’t think they need, regardless of their feelings towards their employer. You can’t push this service onto someone, but you can nudge them to understand what’s in it for them.
Tip #3 – Have the know-how to present this aspect of your talent strategy
Many people simply don’t know what career transition support is or how it can help. To reflect your familiarity with the features and benefits of outplacement, is to demonstrate a conscious regard for what might be on someone’s mind as they deal with loss, reassuring them that the goal is to make sure they are as prepared as possible for their next job search.
Be well rehearsed to deliver a clear and precise message about its practical value to significantly increase the likelihood that employees will access the service. Connect with your outplacement provider to ensure you are knowledgeable of the benefits and to have the know-how to represent this aspect of your talent strategy to departing employees, bearing in mind, they may have no clue of what outplacement support is. Many can confuse it with a recruitment service.
The right outplacement provider can help at all stages of someone’s career – to start a new business, to actively retire, to shift careers completely, to conduct a successful job search, commence a portfolio career, or support personal branding efforts. Skilled career transition coaches build bespoke service to suit all career stages and the job market climate, the idea being that the resources, tools and connections provided can help to focus goals or a job search strategy with an optimised social media profile, a CV recognised by ATS and which directly connects them to hiring managers looking for their skill set, networking prospects, education, interview coaching and more.
Tip #4 – An informative introduction and clear process
Employees may struggle to comprehend the reality of separation which means they aren’t thinking about their next career move, and information can be overwhelming at the time of separation. Indeed, threat of shock has dissociable effects on information processing. Someone may require time to absorb and process the news.
Educate yourself to provide clear details on how they can access support, making sense of all the information being provided. During consultation be crystal clear on what the services provided are and the time available to take advantage of them providing written details of the services including duration, scope, and access. Provide information in several formats during the early stages to ensure as many people as possible receive the support they need. This can take several attempts, however, demonstrates that you care about the next chapter in someone’s career.
Tip #5 – Better still, involve your outplacement partner in notification support
Create an optimum environment of support by having your outplacement provider physically or virtually onsite for notification, to ease any distress and trauma caused by the news which is likely to elicit a broad range of emotional responses.
The value in this comes from the expertise offered by someone who has deep experience in helping employees understand and manage their feelings. This goes a long way to helping someone feel that they have been treated with respect and that they are being supported. Our consultants can quickly highlight the full range of support on offer, which can be reassuring to individuals who realise that they will have access to a specialist service, from someone who knows the current job market. This can reduce the risk of legal action by helping employees move forward.
Tip #6 – Allow us to provide a timely and positive contribution- contact details critical to success
Once a person leaves your organisation, communication is often ceased. Contact details are key to us being able to successfully support your people during transition, noting that people are often not in the right frame of mind to process information about our services from their employer. It’s often information that gets lost in the questions surrounding timing and redundancy payments.
Your outplacement provider should be able to proactively engage directly with employees. There can be a reluctance for people to make contact due to many reasons – reluctance to be seen asking for help, lack of confidence, uncertainty, or anxiety about taking a step into the unknown. A call by one of our experts can be the call that breaks the barrier for them to take the support they need. If we don’t have the contact details, we can’t actively engage. We take our responsibilities for managing candidate’s personal data seriously and ensuring compliance to privacy requirements. In our experience most employees will allow their email address or phone number to be shared with us, when they realise it could mean landing a new job that much faster or getting the help they need.
Finally, better engagement means better benefits for all. Exceptional career coaches really do make a difference, and I heartily recommend that you build a partnership with your outplacement provider tapping into the credibility we offer to guide an individual at a critical career juncture. If you’d like to chat about this some more, or explore a partnership with us, please feel free to contact our Careers Team:
t: 1300335423
e: careers@deliberatepractice.com.au
Related: Outplacement – Don’t Blow it up!
