Three Questions You Must Ask Your Outplacement Services Provider

Outplacement is an important element of an HR toolbox. Outplacement services are actually the most positive service to provide your employees in case of separation based on the needs of your business. There is still a stereotype towards talking about hiring a Career Transition services or provider or outplacement service provider but this is exactly it is even more important to have these services in place. 

In order to talk about outplacement effectively and working towards truly supporting your employees in their career transitions, here is a list of three questions that you need to ask:

1. How Would I Know That My Former Employees Are Achieving Results?

In the outplacement program, the return on your investment is everything you need to be interested in. ROI not only for you but also for your former employees. So how to best measure the return? In order to do this, make sure that the provider you are going to hire for the outplacement program has a quick way to access the information as well as the success of your former employees’. You can ask if they provide a progress report of their trainees. Make sure the reports are timely and contain all the relevant information you would be interested to know. For example, how long it took your former employees to land in a job once they were released from their current responsibilities. The second parameter could be how likely each former employee would recommend the company to others or positively promote the company’s brands amongst peers and friends.  

2. Whether The Services Provided By A Company Are Relevant To Your Former Employees?

Just because something seems like a workable strategy on paper does not mean that it will work out well in a real-life scenario as well. that it is a good idea in practice as well. The outplacement program is a highly personalized one as there is no one size fits all strategy here. They need to be flexible enough to accommodate actual peoples’ feedback, needs and, responses. So ask your provider about the duration of the services and if what would be the plan of action if the services are not relevant and impactful to the individuals taking it. There always needs to be flexibility as well as a pivot strategy depending on the feedback of the individuals involved. 

3. How Do The Company Provide Resources Of Value—And Motivation—To The Employees That Are Impacted?

This is the part where the discussion comes down to pure strategy based points without ignoring the human emotions involved. You need to keep in mind the employees’ feelings during this transition and ask for a plan including both value and motivational aspects in it. Try to understand in-depth how your service provider intends to address the fears and anxieties of the employees. At the end of the program, they should be able to communicate his or her situation to friends and family and become positive about the next course of action in their career. The employee needs to feel supported at all the times be it in building their resumes or improving a particular skill in order for them to land a relevant job.