What is an outplacement service? Why should an employer consider using it? How much does it cost? How does it work? Here is a breakdown of how businesses can use outplacement services to help manage their staff and their image when downsizing its employment base.
What are Outplacement Services?
An outplacement service is a great tool for an employer to use when going down the path of reducing its workforce. It is a professional service that helps laid-off workers find new employment by preparing them for a successful job search. Once an outplace service is hired, they can provide workshops centered around job search best practices, one-on-one resumes reviews, mock interviews, and career transition counseling.
Use Outplacement to Preserve Your Brand, Increase Retention
Offboarding your workforce is just as important as onboarding your new hires. Many could argue that it is even more important.
Reputation and employment brand means a lot to top talent. When looking for a new job, roughly four out of every five job seekers consider an employer’s reputation before applying.
Losing a job can be stressful, but equipping your former workforce with the proper tools needed to complete a successful job search can allow them to have a faster transition to a new career. This can help you maintain a more positive relationship among your retained workforce as well.
Running a business can be difficult and sometimes layoffs are necessary, but it can leave a bad impression on your organization’s brand if you furlough your workers without offering some assistance in searching for a new job. By offering outplacement services you are giving them an opportunity to leave with a more positive impression of your company.
Are Outplacement Services Expensive?
Many studies have proven that there is a positive correlation between happy employees and happy customers, and we all know that happy customers lead to more sales.
It is also important to note that disgruntled employees and upset customers are bad for business. When there are upset customers, sales can drop, and employee turnover increases. The typical cost of hiring a new employee is usually about 1.25 to 1.4 times the worker’s salary. That adds up to being quite a hefty expense as turnover increases.
It is important to consider that the sooner laid-off workers are employed, the sooner you’ll stop paying unemployment benefits and taxes, which can be another heavy expense to pay.
Another downside is that laid-off employees will often resent the former employer, no matter how inevitable the layoff might have been. Outplacement services can help ease that resentment and lower the chances of them taking legal action. Regardless of whether followed all the right steps during the termination process, fighting lawsuits can be both time consuming and financially draining.
Downsizing and layoffs are typically brought on for many different reasons, including financial concerns, which means that saving money is a top priority. So when you ask how much outplacement services cost, you have to figure in the costs of lawsuits, unemployment benefits, the expense of a loss of reputation, and all of the other negative things that may come with mishandling a layoff.
How does Outplacement Work?
Investing in an outplacement service is much easier than you think. The outplacement service does all of the hard stuff for you. Once you meet with your provider they’ll put together a simple overview of the services provided and answer any questions you might have about their package. From there, you will be given a quote and all of the services will be administered by the provider. They’ll plan the workshop, provide easy access to scheduling 1:1 resume reviews and mock interviews (which can be held virtually), and provide all of the necessary materials to the workers, which saves you time and stress.
Shutz Career has extensive experience when it comes to helping businesses with outplacement services.
Learn more about what we offer and what you can expect such service packages to cost by visiting our outplacement services page.
