Outplacement Outhouse

[Cartoon courtesy of Grantland Cartoons]

It's not easy getting "out-placed."  Come to think of it, it's no easier than getting fired or laid off. Oh, whoops, are those all the same thing?  There are a lot of euphemisms for ending someone's career at your company, but my favorite approach (which I still haven't heard of yet for some reason) is asking an unwanted employee if they'd like to choose between two new Profit Seekers International employment plans: they can come to the office and continue doing their jobs without getting paid or they can stop coming to the office and doing their jobs and stop getting paid. Who cares if they, and you, end up with the same result. It just sounds kinder to give a person options, like telling a motorist he can go either left or right directly under a sign that clearly says "dead end."

I'm thinking of all this not just because my brain has a side of it that likes to go to grim places. I'm thinking about it because I'm starting to hear about companies offering their employees outplacement services as a consolation to getting fired, and, presumably, for public relations purposes. I've never participated in an outplacement service, so I have no first hand understanding of what goes on there, and whether it's usually the real deal or whether it truly is nothing more than a nice-sounding consolation prize. One thing I've heard is they're pricey, which begs the question of why a company would want to make an expensive investment on behalf of the very people it just got rid of to save money?   How many of you offer outplacement, and, for those of you that do, why do you do it?

Hopefully your rationale is mostly philanthropic, and equally hopefully the outplacement service is a genuine help, meaning there are ample resources there to aid the "out-placed" with resume-building and job search strategies. It also would be great if there could be psychologically-trained career counselors on hand; not just to profile what the out-placed would be best at in a new job, but to help the out-placed talk through the trauma of becoming ( or getting?) out-placed. It must be very traumatic (I have worked under a sociopath before but have yet to be "out-placed," knock wood), and in a way, it must resemble the impact a bad romantic relationship has on a person. Just as you wouldn't be keen on jumping back into the dating scene after a horrific relationship and break-up; you also wouldn't be excited about taking on another employer after the one you were so good to for so many years just dumped you.  The difference, of course, is when it comes to jobs, you need a new one for the sake of your livelihood, so you don't have much choice.

But that doesn't mean the out-placed won't suffer significant workplace trust issues in their next in-placement. Once this recession is over (whatever decade that happens in), companies will have to contend with employees suffering post traumatic outplacement syndrome. How do you ever make workers trust you enough to be engaged in your company's goals when their last employer pulled the fraying (though still usable) workforce rug out from under them?  Maybe if the out-placed have access to psychological help in whatever outplacement service you invest in for them, they'll be more productive members of the business community, wherever they happen to end up.  With return engagements at the same company common (despite the trust issues I suspect exist), and with a what-goes-around-comes-around business philosophy wise to adopt (a variation on the old mantra about not burning bridges), helping your out-placed weed through the emotional side of getting thrown overboard by you is worthwhile.

Is there anything you can do in tandem with the outplacement service's work?  If the worker you were forced to lay off for financial, not performance, reasons is interested, could you place them into a pool of possible recruits for new or vacated positions at your company?  With the recession in full swing and your company, like many, likely experiencing a hiring and salary freeze, it won't help them in the immediate future, but when the recession eventually recedes, building such a pool of applicants (who've already been put to the test on-the-job and approved) by your company will come in handy.  Could your human resources department work with the various business functions they serve to put together a list of vendors and suppliers your company does business with that might be looking for new employees?  Even if they're not currently looking, could you at least ask these business partners to put your out-placed into a pool of potential applicants?  Even in a recession, after all, there is a need to replace certain positions should they get vacated unexpectedly.

I have another idea, but it's more than a little kooky, though fun. What about bringing in a psychic to read the fortunes of the out-placed?  At the very least it'll make them laugh, and depending on how shoddy an outplacement service you invested in (money's tight after all), they may be just as useful. Maybe the outplacement service of the 21st century is the palm and Tarot card reader.

What kinds of outplacement services do you invest in for those you've "out-placed?"  If you don't do anything for laid off workers except give them until 5 p.m. to clean out their desks, what's the rationale for your austere (kind of nasty) approach?