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4 Things All Outplacement Organizations Should Provide Your Business

September 07, 2017 by Josh Hrala

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All outplacement organizations offer the same thing, right? Guidance and support for your outbound employees as they transition to a new role elsewhere.

While, yes, that’s true, outplacement organizations can – and should – be a strategic partner that your company can rely on, especially in times of need.

This is where the many differences come in between providers.

Think about it: all outplacement providers want the same thing, yet all of them differ dramatically in how they deliver that result.

For one, they shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. After all, if your organization is going through a downsizing event, you probably don’t want to spend the extra money on outplacement. To help with that, here’s a simple calculator to see how much outplacement will cost you if you use Careerminds:

How much could you be saving using Careerminds? This calculator will show how much you could save over a year using Careerminds, as compared to your current provider.

Besides offering a great service at a great price, here are 4 other things that outplacement organizations should offer their clients:

Limitless Support

When an outplacement organization takes on a new client, many of them implement a term limit.

What’s that mean?

Well, like any other service, outplacement is typically offered to the client for a set period of time. If no results come during that window of opportunity, the client is dropped, forcing them to navigate the job market on their own.

outplacement organizations

While that works fine for other services, outplacement is quite a bit different.

Consider this: your laid off employee receives a severance payment and outplacement services. Severance, on average, lasts roughly three months and so does the term limit on traditional outplacement services.

This means that, if your ex-employee doesn’t find work in three months, they are out – or almost out – of severance money and also are about to get their support system cut out from under them.

This puts them in a horrible position that’s way worse than when they were first let go. If you are using outplacement to provide a safety net for your brand – ensuring that laid off staff know that you have their backs at this delicate time – using term limits is a great way for all that resentment build up anyway.

Basically, using a firm that has term limits is a gamble. Instead, you should find a firm that doesn’t use them at all. One that will instead work with your employee as long as they need.

(Pro tip: Careerminds is the only firm out there that doesn’t have term limits on their services. Just saying.)

Simple Access to Services

In today’s world, almost anything can be done online. So, why have so many outplacement organizations skipped it?

The job market lives online. Your outplacement provider should as well because if they are unable to figure out how to provider their service to anyone in the country, how are they going to be able to find new jobs in today’s digital landscape.

outplacement organizations

No longer should employees have to travel into major cities to receive outplacement at a brick and mortar location. They should be able to access help wherever and whenever they see fit.

Do they have time in the middle of the night? Do they have time in the morning or afternoon? It shouldn’t matter.

Not only does a technologically-driven approach to outplacement make it easier for employees to get back to work faster and on their own terms, it also shows you that the company you’re working with is up to date on modern trends and will be using all of their knowledge to help your staff.

After all, shouldn’t outplacement organizations have more expertise when it comes to finding new work than your staff member already does?

Appropriate Retainer Fees

Oh, retainer fees.

As you know, firms that offer ongoing services typically charge companies retainer fees to keep them onboarded for when the time comes for the company to use their service.

Lawyers are the best example of this. You probably don’t need a lawyer’s advice every single day, but if you do, you want to have one on speed dial.

The same can be said for outplacement providers. Sure, you may not need to use their services all of the time but it helps to not have to shop around every time a layoff rears it’s ugly head.

outplacement organizations

However, unlike law firms, outplacement providers do not need to charge for retainer. After all, it’s a completely different beast.

Instead, outplacement organizations should work with you – like we said before – as a strategic partner. If you have, say, one layoff event per year, is there a point to pay a retainer fee for the rest of the time when you will have to then pay for the service and also hope that your employee is placed in a new role before the term deadline?

That’s called wasting money.

Since outplacement firms know that they can charge a retainer fee on top of service fees and can also get you to agree to term limits, they end up winning this equation. You will spend more for a service that may not work, and that’s not good for business.

What you should look for is a firm that doesn’t charge retainer fees because their services will not be called upon enough for it to make financial sense.

It also shows you that the firm is willing to work with you without trying to charge you too much for the service.

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is one of those buzzy phrases that gets thrown around at corporate retreats and on business blogs across the internet. What it really means is that a firm – or individual – is current on the trends of the day.

Your outplacement organization should be a thought leader on career transitioning. This means that they should know how to handle every step of the process from the layoff meeting to the final placement.

They should also share all of this information with you because it will dramatically help you run your company with less stress.

outplacement organizations

HR is one of those departments where paradigms shift every afternoon. It can be hard to keep up with what is going on in the wide world of human resources, but it shouldn’t be hard for your outplacement organization because it is – quite frankly – their job to be.

Outplacement organizations do not need to bother themselves with the day-to-day tasks that an HR manager does, giving them the time to research topics that matter. Find an outplacement provider that you can lean on for this information.

Let’s wrap it all up.

If you want to have the best outplacement services money can buy, you should find a firm that is a strong strategic partner.

This means using an outplacement organization that doesn’t overwhelm you with retainer fees, stays current on the latest HR trends, uses cutting-edge technology, and forgoes term limits.

You know who strikes all of those boxes? We do.

Find out how Careerminds can help you with all of your outplacement and workforce needs by scheduling a demo today

Speak with an Outplacement Expert
Josh Hrala

Josh Hrala

Josh is an HR journalist and ghostwriter who's been covering outplacement and offboarding for over six years. Before pivoting to the HR world, he was a science journalist whose work can be found in Popular Science, ScienceAlert, The Huffington Post, Cracked, Modern Notion, and more.

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