The recent and dramatic increase in corporate downsizing in response to the recession has surfaced debate about the costs and liabilities inherent in the outplacement process. To avoid major landmines, organizations and HR professionals frequently call upon outplacement firms to assist with the efforts in redirecting displaced employees. These same outplacement firms are more often than not under intense pressure, time and budget constraints during the outplacement process because they must offer competitive (fixed fee) packages to their clients, who are restructuring their own activities to contain costs. To remain competitive, firms might overlook important elements of the assessment activity at the front end of the outplacement process, such as 360-degree reference feedback, which they might view as a premium typically reserved solely for executive outplacement.
But a new, innovative online reference check solution is answering the call by making the 360-degree reference feedback accessible to all outplacement recipients. VerifAction Solutions (www.VerifActionSolutions.com) provides clients with unique tools that assist the outplacement firm through the critical stages of the employee outplacement cycle -- including cost-effectively gathering 360-degree reference feedback from a candidate's references in an outplacement context. The result: more comprehensive feedback from multiple sources to assist in the outplacement planning and placement process. This gives an outplacement firm and the displaced employee a better tool, which leads to improved self-branding and job targeting and therefore reduces the placement cycle time. In addition, outplacement firms have a way to differentiate themselves because they can integrate a service that was once only available to executive outplacement services.
ìOutplacement firms are in the crunch between trying to provide quality services to displaced employees and managing their costs on a fixed budget, says Michel Salmon, president and founder of VerifAction Solutions. The 360-degree reference feedback is a valuable tool that can facilitate the outplacement process, but because of the prohibitive cost of collecting this valuable information, previously has not been widely used -- until now.
Salmon further acknowledges that VerifActionís price points and value proposition are such that an outplacement firm is now able to integrate the 360-degree reference feedback across all of its outplacement service offerings, thus differentiating itself and remaining competitive.
By increasing the value proposition for outplacement firms, VerifAction Solutions proves a clear competitive advantage, says recruiting industry media veteran RD Whitney, CEO of Tarsus Online Media USA, whose portfolio includes Online Recruitment Magazine, Onrec.com, The Onrec Expo 2009 and TalentManagementTech.com. We are always on the lookout for innovative online solutions and tools that add productivity to the talent management life cycle, and we were very excited to come across VerifAction Solutions. Given all the activity in outplacement right now, this could provide a competitive advantage to an outplacement firm and improve the process for all the stakeholders, including corporations.
VerifAction Assists Outplacement Firms with Greater Efficiency and Differentiation
The recent and dramatic increase in corporate downsizing in response to the recession has surfaced debate about the costs and liabilities inherent in the outplacement process
