Outplacement is a process that accompanies a collaborator in its disengagement from an organization, whether due to lay off, retirement, or organizational restructuring. The objective of this process is to establish, alongside the collaborator, an action plan in the transition to a new stage in his or her career.
“In our country's labour market, global trends in organizational restructuring in industries such as technology and digital retail sectors are having an impact. Restructuring is also taking place in organizations that are part of the supply chain of public sector entities. This is why many people responsible for managing personnel are finding in outplacement a very valuable support system to achieve their strategic objectives,” says Matiana Behrends, Partner of Advisory Services and Leader of Human Capital Services for Grant Thornton Argentina and Perú.
According to data from the INDECi, 7.6% of the economically active population of our country is unemployed. Of them, 49.6% are women and 26.7% are 30 years old or older.
“Something particular about outplacement processes is that each case is unique. A person's age, gender, career status, and responsibilities in other areas of their life - such as family or academic commitments - play an important role in defining what their next steps will be," says Behrends.
“At Grant Thornton we consider that all our work processes must be guided by our values because we believe that people are the most important asset of any organization. When providing services to our clients, we maintain these values and we care about understanding our clients’ culture. In this way, the outplacement service represents the importance of each person for the organization.
Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) perspective influences our decisions and our work processes. We listen carefully to each collaborator to provide them with the support they need: in some cases psychological support led by our psychology professionals is prioritized, in other cases the process focuses more on reintegration into the labour market and for those who are at the end of their career or seek to reinvent themselves as independent entrepreneurs, we focus on financial planning and business plan support,” says Behrends.
In organizational restructuring processes in which more than one person is affected, organizations are discovering that outplacement processes influence the working environment, as much as talent attraction and retention strategies.
“Restructuring processes are not difficult only for those who are laid off or relocated. Their colleagues and peers are also affected. In many cases, restructuring causes resignations of valuable staff for the new stage of the organization, because people feel insecure and unmotivated due to the changes in their teams,” says Behrends.
“Successful outplacement processes positively influence the staff turnover rate since they demonstrate to all collaborators that their contribution to the organization is valued and that they are considered in an holistic way, as human beings and not just as a work position”, she concludes.
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i. INDEC Technical Reports Vol. 8, No. 211: Labour Market Vol. 8, No. 7 “Labour market. Socioeconomic rates and indicators (EPH) - Second quarter of 2024” – Retrieved from https://www.indec.gob.ar/
