Courtenay HR

Redundant Procedures?

Just been told your job ends in 3 months? About to complete that restructuring project that ends with you showing yourself the door? If you are fortunate enough to have outplacement offered as part of the severance package, you are probably getting something that goes like this:

• ‘Career counselling’ and support in exploring the most appropriate career options for you

• Group sessions or one on ones on how to get back into the job market

• Virtual reception facilities to create the illusion of employment

• Secretarial/admin support to help you knock out the job applications and CV

• Interview training/video feedback on brushing up your technique

• Office facilities/desk to work from

Sounds great doesn’t it. But did you ever stop and ask yourself just how relevant these things are to a jobseeker in the year 2004. Outplacement has been around almost as long as stretch jeans (remember those!) but we don’t wear them anymore do we? (and if you do you really shouldn’t) So why are we still working to the same tired old formula? What was once an innovative and valuable service has developed into a commodity product. It’s now an industry which demands efficiency and returns and it is these demands that have stifled creativity preventing the whole outplacement offering from developing with the needs of the individuals concerned.

Think about it for a minute:

Virtual reception - you own a mobile (If you don’t, then you and my, as yet unborn third child are the only ones in the country that don’t) so, in the era of the ‘mobile executive’ why have someone fronting things for you?

Secretarial services - With internet penetration hitting 70% in the UK, document and letter templates available to almost everyone via word processing software, who needs someone else to prepare CV’s and job applications? Some outplacement organisations are charging £20 or £30 per covering letter produced!

Interview coaching - video assessment and the ‘marketing yourself’ seminars. Picking you up on that annoying habit of saying ‘erm’, ‘right’ and ‘innit’, several times during the interview are obviously value added, but again, it’s a bit limited.

Office space - You probably spent the first x years of your kids life being an absentee parent, do you really want to spend your days as one of the great unwashed away from them as well? With even a basic set of facilities you could probably accomplish more from home and enjoy the experience more than you would languishing in someone else’s office facilities.

Career coaching - As such, you enter your career options discussion with the outplacement consultant way too early and in the wrong frame of mind. Also, the outplacement consultant is ill equipped to deal with these kinds of issues for two key reasons:

• They are primarily focussed on steering your career options and getting you back to work. Many do not have the breadth of coaching skills to help you address the personal issues raised when a major life event occurs

• They are not rewarded for addressing these issues. This may sound harsh, but most outplacement contracts are time limited, and the remuneration of many consultants depends on them getting you in, processed and out in a defined time frame. Most often than not, this time frame is too short for these issues to work themselves out.

A recent article illustrates the point. The piece entitled ‘Getting back on the right track after redundancy’ by Sarah Burgess (Personnel Today 9th March 2004) challenges the appropriateness and timing of traditional career coaching delivered through outplacement. Despite the support of her consultant and the fact that she had elected herself for redundancy on the basis “it was what I wanted”, Sarah was totally unprepared for the impact it had on her personally.

One of the most telling comments in Sarah’s dialogue is that which refers to her decision to become self employed and set up on her own, having discussed it with her outplacement consultant at her last session. In her words “I was given a book on self-employment and walked out of the door for the last time”. This is totally wrong. She should never have been given that book. If she were destined to set up on her own she would have done it already.

Perhaps what should have been explored was her need for the flexibility and autonomy of self employment coupled with the security and framework of an established business. In other words an associate or freelance agent working for an established business. Luckily for Sarah she worked this out for herself after a few weeks. Others have not been so lucky, continuing on this fruitless path with disastrous consequences, only to try and return to the world of employment months later when the money has run dry and the hoped for client base had not materialised.

Sadly, it seems that the original value of the intent of outplacement has been lost somewhat. When it first appeared, it was a real coo for employee relations. All of those people who thought they had a job for life, and almost did, were given a valuable lifeline in a service that provided a range of skills and services they so badly needed.

Today’s professionals change jobs every 2 - 4 years. Being displaced has now happened to the best of us so the stigma of redundancy is less. The modern worker is so wired with technology they practically glow in the dark. They have free access to very sophisticated, self improvement and presentation tools and the desire for the balanced life means that a surrogate office facility does not form the same crutch as it might once have done.

Compared to 20 years ago, the needs of today’s professionals would seem very different. If outplacement is to develop as a value added service in the new millennium, it’s time to drop those elements of the service that are no longer relevant. And of course those stretch jeans too.