Outplacement services key to economic recovery
Posted on 4:23pm, 24th April 2010 • No Comments
A recent outplacement services project showed how terrifyingly close many people are to financial disaster even before they lose their jobs. Newly redundant workers in tears explained how relationship breakdowns and partners’ reduced hours made paying the bills a constant struggle even while they’d worked for the best paying employer in the area. Now their jobs had gone so they feared losing their homes. Their outplacement services programme had to get them back into well paid work in the few weeks before their redundancy pay ran out.
Surveys show most Britons’ total savings amount to less than 2 months pay …. not much of a cash cushion. Unemployment / income support benefit levels don’t pay enough to meet job seekers’ basic living costs. Redundant workers can’t afford to wait 6 months for government-funded intensive outplacement services to kick in.
GB PLC also suffers from delays in providing outplacement services good enough to equip professional workers for professional jobs in today’s extremely competitive jobs market. Using Chartered Engineers to fill supermarket shelves is the most awful waste of professional skills and of the resources spent in their training. High skills rust if they’re not used. It takes 5 years for many workers to get back to the same level of earnings they had before they were made redundant (and the less they earn, the less the state can hope to get back in tax). Good, intensive outplacement services in the earliest stages of redundancy are definitely in the national economic interest.
Many employers put outplacement services in place immediately for their redundant staff. These staff are the lucky ones because effective job search is a skill in its own right, it isn’t something you pick up by searching the net and downloading CV formats or advice on interview techniques. DIY outplacement services work particularly badly for those seeking management and professional jobs (employers seeking staff for manual and clerical posts aren’t quite so demanding).
Employers not able to offer professional outplacement services may still give staff useful help by contacting local employers on their behalf about possible vacancies. They can provide information about local sources of outplacement services, debt counselling services, specialised recruitment services, etc. They can warn against relying excessively on recruitment agencies for help with improving job search techniques and getting the next job.
Many outplacement services providers offer a limited amount of free help to enquirers as a marketing device. Consultancies providing corporate outplacement services may also take on individual clients. Being jobless is more expensive than people think so it’s vital to tap into all the available sources of outplacement services as quickly as you can.