How To Use Corporate Outplacement Strategically

It goes without saying that corporate outplacement first and foremost is a humane and compassionate way to aid your laid off employees in an extremely challenging time in their lives. The benefits for your employees are without limits in terms of professional assistance in their re-employment efforts during their job search. However, the outplacement benefits provided to your laid off employees can be strategically important and helpful to the company’s long term efforts as well.

First, when delivered properly by your Human Resources team, the risks of employee litigation are immediately reduced. As any experienced Human Resources professional knows, handling the layoff notification can make or break the employee’s reaction when separating from the company. When the employee being let go feels that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and they will be afforded professional outplacement assistance by a team of resume writers, career coaches, etc, that employee will leave with a more positive opinion of the employer, and with a diminished sense of the future unknowns.

However the benefits to the company continue well beyond the initial layoff notification. These benefits are realized in improved branding and reputation, advantages when recruiting future employees, a significant increase in company morale and culture, and even the potential of expanded customer base with more ex-employees continuing to be ambassadors to your brand.

Using corporate outplacement strategically can provide the best outcome for all parties, and this strategy should be in place long before layoffs or outplacement becomes a reality. But what does using corporate outplacement strategically really mean? In essence, there should be concrete policies in place for outplacement services as a benefit for various scenarios. These scenarios most commonly are thought of during mass layoffs. However in addition to using outplacement during times of mass layoffs, many companies routinely use outplacement services when company locations move and a certain number of employees may opt not to relocate. This can mean a single employee, several individuals, or more and many companies offer a different level of outplacement support based on the circumstances of the layoff.

Another scenario can be the one off situation. Perhaps there was redundancy in two roles, and the decision has been made to combine them by eliminating a position. Many companies may opt for a higher level of support for this scenario than they would during economic challenges with mass layoffs. The bottom line is, in order to effectively use outplacement as a strategic benefit, it is important to develop a plan with your corporate outplacement provider to outline specifically when and what benefits will be available to your employees.