Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER February 6, 2017 8 NEWS an employment lawyer in Toronto. In the case of long-standing, high-ranking employees, hiring an outplacement agency can ac- tually save an organization money in the long run, he said. Many employers will send outgoing employees off with a salary continuation or severance package in place to help them transition, often with the pro- vision they will continue to pay half the employees' salaries for a set period if they are able to find work — an extra incentive for the employees that can save the em- ployer money. For more senior-level positions, in both the public and private sec- tor, it would make sense to offer the outplacement, said Krupat. "I don't think there'd be an argu- ment that it's improper. It's going to help the employee find work, minimize the potential legal li- ability and will affect the percep- tion of how the employer treats its employees. In all of those re- spects, there's nothing untoward about that." Using the service can also prove beneficial should a disgruntled outgoing employee attempt a court challenge, he said. "The employer benefits if they're able to show they tried to act reasonably by offering the employee money but also trying to help them find other work." e service is popular and ben- eficial for all affected parties, said Henry Hornstein, assistant busi- ness professor with expertise in organizational change manage- ment at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. "ere is no labour law in Can- ada that specifies it must be done, but, from a public relations per- spective, as well as demonstrating care and concern for employees, employers will decide to use out- placement services and, in that situation, everyone wins." Growing trend Today's job market is very com- plicated and companies have real- ized outplacement or career tran- sition services are a critical link between employees losing their jobs and finding new ones, said Alexander Lutchin, president and CEO of Career Compass Canada in Hamilton, Ont. "Companies take this seriously, whether they're private or public sector, and over the past five years, outplacement has become an in- tegral part of how companies exit employees," said Lutchin, noting that up until the past few years, companies approached the ser- vice on an ad hoc basis or even as an afterthought. Outplacement services are most often contracted out to third-party agencies that help outgoing employees brush up on skills such as resumé writing, cover letters, interview tactics and the like, said Hornstein. Having an opportunity to talk personally with career counsel- lors, as well as peers, is also very helpful. "ese are skills that, if done well, will improve the probability of you getting work," he said. "It is a very useful process. It's sort of like group therapy. Being down- sized and having to go through the job search process can be very depressing. People start to doubt their capabilities as individuals, as professionals." Meanwhile, the employer reaps benefits in terms of its corporate brand, future recruitment and employee morale for workers who remain on staff, said Alan Kearns, founder of CareerJoy, a national career coaching service in Toronto. "e top employers in the coun- try have this as a best practice," he said. "I'm not saying it's a magic potion, but it's a good practice among the better employees in the country. It's humanizing. How you end the relationship with an employer says a lot to (employees) and to the organization." Outplacement helps maintain a company's reputation, said Krupat. "If a company develops a repu- tation of treating people reason- ably fairly when they're let go, then that would probably help when people are considering whether to go there in the first place," he said. "There's often an economic incentive for the company, even a relatively small company, to of- fer it, although many small com- panies don't look at it that way and they'd rather try to save as much as possible, offer the mini- mum and fight it out, negotiate, whatever." Per-employee fees range be- tween $1,000 to $10,000 depend- ing on rank and time spent with the outplacement agency, which can range from one month to one year, said Kearns. Outplacement is often the cheapest part of a severance pack- age, though price varies in terms of employee rank, said Lutchin. "A senior manager or director or vice-president or executive is going to have more complexity in getting landed than a front-line or junior person," he said. "As a re- sult, their outplacement programs run longer in duration." Ensuring positive results Most companies spend a great deal of time ensuring new em- ployees are onboarded success- fully after hire, and more need to do the same at termination, said Kearns. "Termination is part of the em- ployment experience, we would argue. Quite frankly, they're going to remember that a lot more than when they started with you." Despite a recent trend that is seeing some firms lean towards offering outplacement via webi- nars or e-support, Kearns said he still supports customizable one-on-one consultation, which he likened to the Starbucks ex- perience where a customer can purchase "coffee built with your name on it." Additionally, employers can do better when it comes to selecting an outplacement agency to part- ner with, said Fraser Johnson, an operations management profes- sor at Western University's Ivey Business School in London, Ont. "In a lot of situations, organiza- tions don't do a good job in terms of managing the services that are provided by the outplacement agency," he said. "ey see it as a cost-minimi- zation exercise. You're not talking about a lot of money, relative to how much people are typically being paid. The sooner some- body can get re-employed, the less amount of money you have to pay them in terms of severance and termination." Human resources practitio- ners should conduct research on potential agencies to ensure outgoing employees will be sat- isfied with the services received, he said. Staff should visit the site of the outplacement office, review pro- gramming, understand counsel- lor workloads, measure perfor- mance in terms of how quickly employees find new work, and check references before simply enlisting the first agency listed in their Rolodex, said Johnson. "It's pretty standard, even for medium-sized businesses — any organization with a manager of human resources. Even if you're a small business, in most circum- stances, it's the right thing to do." OUTPLACEMENT < pg. 1 term career potential at that early age... I'd like to see government and industry do a much better job in getting involved in post- secondary or secondary educa- tion and teaching individuals that the choices that they make today do have a larger effect on their ca- reer path down the line." In British Columbia, a trans- formative process is already un- derway to introduce promoted jobs to elementary school stu- dents. Provincial politicians have launched a "Find Your Fit" tour in partnership with the govern- ment's WorkBC that sees students between Grades 5 and 10 explor- ing a variety of in-demand occu- pations through an interactive job fair scenario. e program is part of the prov- ince's Skills for Jobs Blueprint that is meant to match labour market requirements with future gradu- ates' skill sets. "ere's expected to be nearly one million job openings in B.C. by 2025," said Abbotsford MLA Darryl Plecas. "Programs like Find Your Fit are taking the steps needed to ensure we have an educated and skilled workforce ready to meet that demand." Closing the gap Closing the perceived gap be- tween educators and employers has always been high on colleges' to-do list, said Linda Franklin, president and CEO of Colleges Ontario in Toronto. "Addressing that exact gap is why colleges were invented, re- ally," she said. "We spend an awful lot of time with employers, talk- ing about those issues. We have industry advisory committees for every area that we train in." ese committees are made up of business experts who work to ensure the post-secondary cur- riculum is consistently updated and revised in order to hit desired targets in terms of skills and job- readiness, said Franklin. "It's a complicated discussion," she said. "On the one hand, em- ployers will say to us: 'Well, we need students that have more soft skills, better communication skills, team-building skills' and so forth." "And so, over the last few years, we've added more and more expe- riential learning to our programs, so students are in workplaces, learning those types of skills from the ground up." But, at the same time, employ- ers want students with job-ready hard skills, said Franklin, ac- knowledging that negative indus- try feedback is always present, despite colleges' best efforts. "That's where there's some- times a challenge with employers' engagement," she said. "Over the years, companies are spending less and less on training and de- velopment. at's requiring the college system, particularly, to do more and more." If training is going to become the duty of post-secondary in- stitutions, businesses will need to become much more engaged in the process of work-integrat- ed learning opportunities, said Franklin. "ere will have to be a grow- ing understanding that you can train students to be terrific in a particular field or profession, but that doesn't necessarily mean that as an employer, you can hire them and have them trained specifically to your shop floor," she said. "Where we're going to have to get to is a higher level of engage- ment between employers, stu- dents and the colleges going for- ward, particularly around the area of experiential learning." "If nothing else, that constant churning and changing of the economy, upgrading of need for skills and advancement of busi- ness technology is always going to mean we're working to close that gap to make sure that our students are ahead of the curve in the economy." Churning of economy a challenge NEW GRADS < pg. 3 Gains for corporate brand, employee morale "We've added more and more experiential learning to our programs." "It's sort of like group therapy. Being downsized and going through the job search process can be very depressing."

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