Career Transition Case Study: A Candidate’s Perspective – Valuable or Not?
Career transition services are often written about from the point of view of the organisation offering the services as or the organisation making use of the services for their employees.
While career transition services are generally highly valued by HR managers and are widely reported to have positive impacts across the organisation, what is the true value to the people receiving the service and are there ways that we can improve their experience?
We discuss some key take-outs from a recent case study.
Online Tools vs One-on-One Coaching
“While the online tools were practical and useful, I found the pastoral care and emotional support from Celeste to be the most valuable part of the entire process.”
The emotional support and one-on-one coaching remain the most valuable aspect of any career transition service. Where possible a one-on-one approach will benefit the outgoing employee.
However, it should be noted that while less emphasis is often placed on the online tools provided they were still seen in this case as a ‘useful way to clarify my values, interests and ambitions at this time’. The real benefit comes when combined with the support of the coach.
Attitude and Recruitment Services
While the candidate is well on the way to gaining new employment he has an exceedingly positive and proactive approach, which will ultimately help him gain employment.
Organisations cannot determine the ensuing attitude and effects of a redundancy process on each individual, this factor again comes down to the candidate’s willingness and readiness to find new employment.
In certain circumstances, there are also opportunities for outgoing employees to start working with the career transition providers’ recruitment consultants before the career transition program officially ends to fast track the process.
Acknowledgement
“I personally value the service and have recommended it to a few colleagues already. I also fed my gratitude to the HR team.”
Acknowledgment of the value of services can provide increased goodwill between the organisation, the outgoing employee and the remaining employees.
The opportunity to measure the success of career transition services through candidate feedback further supports the objective of creating the best possible outcome for outgoing employees, the organisation and remaining employees.
Conclusion
With career transition services there are potentially two customers with different needs. While the retrenching organisation pays for the service, if the ultimate customer is the outgoing employee, then the program needs to consider their needs as well.
Readiness is a key factor to consider when dealing with a greater focus on job searching assistance. Could career transition be more beneficial if outgoing employees were given a period of time to deal with the involuntary job
Being able to provide tailored solutions to the outgoing employees, career transition providers can address their individual needs and provide the all important emotional support component, which in turn enables them to reflect on their departure with integrity and their self esteem in tact.
It is essentially about ‘placing people first’.