Outplacement Services: Most Employers Willing to Assist Laid-off Employees

If you get laid off, expect that your company won't just slam the door on your way out. According to a recent i4cp study, nearly 70% of companies provided outplacement assistance to employees who were affected by a reduction in force (RIF).

With over three-quarters of respondents saying their company has conducted layoffs in the last two years, outplacement assistance is more crucial than ever as unemployment nation-wide approaches 10%. Of the companies that do provide such services, 76% outsource to an external firm, 7.1% handle them completely in-house and 16.9% use a combination of the two. However, far fewer high-performing organizations - those that have excelled in growth and market share - rely solely on external outplacement firms, with 30% saying they use a combined approach.

A vast majority (77.7%) of respondents said that they have no intentions to change the level of outplacement services provided to employees in the future. Only 12.4% said they'd offer less, while 9.9% said they'd offer more.

The outplacement aid a company provides depends largely on the position the former employee held in the organization. Executives are more likely to be offered outplacement services for up to a year (33.1%), whereas it is more common for managers and individual contributors to be given only up to three months (46.9% and 58.5%, respectively). For non-exempt employees, 53.1% of companies said they provide outplacement services for up to three months, but 35.4% said they don't provide any services.

Over 40% of respondents said that, on average, nearly half of executives, managers and individual contributors actually take advantage of their outplacement benefits, though the lower in title, the less likely an employee is to use the services. Non-exempt employees are the least likely to use such benefits.