Expositor: Steve Harrison - Lee Hetch Harrison

I will tell you a few more things about me that are very, very critical. I live in the New York, USA area, my father was a psychiatrist, I married to a psychologist, I am very, very normal, but perhaps not so normal because I have a strange hobby. My hobby is that I collect electric rock & roll guitars and my favorite guitar is the same type of guitar is the same type of guitar that Carlos Santana plays.

So, what is outplacement? Many of you know what it is, some of you do not, but that is not unusual, even in America. Corporate outplacement is paid for by the terminating company, the company who fires people pays for the service. It is a process of helping employees who have been terminated or whose jobs have been eliminated. It helps these people learn effective job strategies and to conduct a successful job campaign and as well to deal with their job loss with renewed self-confidence. I am blessed by being the business of heart. Through trained consultants we do the following: we assist people who have lost their jobs in letter-writing and résumé development, interview training, the use of employment agencies and staffing companies, job location research through technology, we provide office and administrative support, so you can think of us as a sort of a daytime business hotel, so when people lose their jobs they stayed with us during the day as we are helping them. We provide motivation and encouragement during the job search and emotional support because it is an emotional time. Outplacement is personal and confidential service. Determined individuals we help are called individual clients and the company who pays for is called the sponsor or customer. It can be said that even though we are in the job business we are the opposite of a staffing company or employment agency. Employment agencies find people for jobs, we find jobs for people and we are serving two customers at the same time, the company that pays the bill and the terminated individual who we serve.

So, how and when did outplacement start? Most people believe that outplacement started in the late 1940´s after World War II when the army in America had a problem. What do we do with these young men and women who were overseas in the army and never worked before, what do we do to get them in the workplace in the United States? So the army hired consultants, mostly psychologist to provide job-search help to the recently discharged soldiers who were re-entering the American job market. And during the next twenty years the outplacement industry grew very, very slowly. This service was offered at that time to the highest level executives, senior executives and the company human resource executive was very rarely involved in the service, it was done very secretly, but this changed very significantly during the last twenty years. The very rapid growth of outplacement in the United States took place as a result of the waves of downsizing in the 1980´s, in the 1990´s. You remember in 1985, 1986, merger mania, 1987, the stock market crashed, more people were laid off; 1989 till 1991, the terrible recession in the United States, more people were laid off and outplacement expanded some more, became popular. In 1992 to 1995, re-engineering, that is a fancy way for taking costs out of the business, usually in the form of people. From 1996 to 1999, a new merger mania, incorporate globalization that let to outplacement popularity and the expansion of the outplacement industry globally.
Outplacement is no longer a secret in many countries. Job loss is no longer shameful of stigmatized. Outplacement became more accepted and my company Lee Hetch Harrison grew through what is now one hundred and forty offices in the United States, Canada, Asia-Pacific and Europe and South America and number three in the world. The corporate outplacement industry today is now a one billion industry in the United States with one thousand outplacement firms. The outplacement market in the other countries in the rest of the world has a combined sales of five hundred million and we have our own association which does very interesting things and has meetings like this. Corporation world- wide has realized the special benefits of the service, special enough to start sponsoring and paying for the service in behalf of their terminated employees. So, why do companies buy this service? Number one, to maintain a positive reputation with their community and with their customers, to maintain the morale of the remaining employees, the survivors who are upset that their colleagues have lost their jobs. Companies do it because of the sense of social responsibility, it´s the right thing to do. I must say that many companies, if not most in America provide outplacement services to minimize their legal liabilities. Some companies do it because that´s the current trend and other companies do it to facilitate change and change is the order of the day in countries like the United States.

So what are the causes? What produces the need for outplacement? First, merger and acquisitions. It creates job overlap. Second globalization. Third, privatization, innovation, some experiments fail and people loose their jobs are a result. Relocation, if a company in the United States relocates its operations to Panama there can be hundreds of employees who are left behind, they need outplacement services. Reengineering as we talked about before, restructuring we are in the regeneration, revitalization, reengineering, reorganizing, restructuring and top management change because it isn´t it true that when a new boss into the company he or she sometimes wants to bring in their own team and get rid of the old team. So if you leave today remembering few things that causes outplacement there is one word and that is change. Change produces the need for outplacement. Now that´s for the company. What about for the client individual, the person who loss his/her job, the job seeker. What are the benefits to him of her? First, as an outplacement company we are partner for advice and counsel and guidance, someone to talk to. Second, se provide a methodology, there is a method to maximize good results if you are looking for a job, we provide an office to work out of, an administrative support, a support of place to go. You know, I talked about the fact that we are in business of heart. Yes, we are in the outplacement business but sometimes we say about ourselves that we are really in the transfer of strength business. We as outplacement consultants are transferring our strength to individual who temporarily lost their strength. It´s an opportunity who lost their jobs to learn new skills. Someone who has been an engineer in the company for twenty-five years comes to us and in a way we say to him or her "well, regardless of what you have to done for your working life, congratulations, you are a salesman now and the product is you." For the individual job seeker is an opportunity, is a services that eases the disruption in the life. And what are these services? Well, there are three or four kinds, for the highest level executives it´s individual private consulting in a private office with the counselor. For mayor downsizing, for example, at AT&T, we do most of the work for AT&T across the United States, thousands and thousands of employees, sometimes all at the same time, it´s call project of group outplacements and that is done in seminars form, in classroom form. Sometimes the outplacement activity has so much volume and so many people are laid off that we don´t have offices big enough to do it, so we do it right on the premises of the company who is laying off the people, these are call career centers. And this amazing, right now, corporations are also looking to us to give them advice on how to keep people because in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom there is virtually no unemployment, four percent unemployment. So we find ourselves in the retention business, it´s not ironic and the elements to our service? well, we have to coach and counsel the boss at a company on how to do a termination because at all cost it must be done sensitively and we must maintain the dignity of the individual loosing the job. So we tell the company "don´t do it on Friday, in a bar, don´t do it walking to a parking lot on the way home, don´t do it in your office so the individual who is fired leaves with mascara pouring down the face in tears coming down. Do it in the individual´s office so he or she can gain their composure, these are nuances but very, very important to maintain dignity. Another element of the service is the actual counseling; a third is the hospitality that we talked about. And finally in these modern days technology to identify potential employers. Our firm Lee Hetch Harrison we are one of the oldest, so experience is an important factor, we combine high tech with high touch we are in the business of the heart. We provide global reach with local touch because most people don´t want to move countries or cities. We provide leadership in the confusing and complicated new world of work and we provide quality insurance with our own quality team. What are the success factors for both the sponsor company and the individual? Let me so through some of them. Success factors include ethics. We have to be very, very careful, we are dealing with people-s lives we are dealing with their emotions, we are exposed to confidences that they tell us. Sometimes people have lost their jobs but are the same time they are loosing the marriages, and at the same time they are loosing their mother or father, this is very confidential stuff. Another success factor is that we have to be sensitive to all of the companies´ constituencies, all of their publics, the news media, how do we deal with them, the families at home, one of the first things we ask someone who´s lost his of her job is what are you going to say when you go home, you must act strong, you must act in control. The corporate community, what is the communication to the, the competitors the suppliers, and very, very important, the survivors. Another success factor is the orchestration of a well-planned termination or downsizing. All of you specially in human resources read the newspapers everyday and you are reading usually about a company that´s lying people off, it´s become in some countries an expectation. And most people understand that, but what should not be understood and should not be accepted is anything less than the choreography, the orchestration of a well-planned, sensitively planned termination event. We must communicate our progress to the corporation who paid the bill, we must customize because no two people are alike, some are young, some are older, some have had long careers, some have had short careers, some have had many employers, some have had few, some have had problems at home, some are rich, some are poor, we must customize, we must be flexible, we must be responsive when someone looses his or her job we must be there for them, now. Every employee who comes in to our service, and this is probably true for all good outplacement firms has our home phone numbers, has their consultant´s home phone number in case they wake up in the middle of the night, panicked. We must price our services in a fair and just manner and we must partner with human resources, so let me talk our placement and the human resources function. It is nearer to my heart because I was a human resource guy and I am dealing constantly in the world of the human resource function. The operative word here is human, isn´t it? Ours is a personal, human service for human beings, yours is too. All of our energy in this business of ours is spent in helping a human who was once a valued resource helping that human becomes valuable again. Every professional in our business is passionate about revitalizing a individual´s career following a career setback. We in the outplacement business are connected to you in the human resource community in many ways. You are the people to whom we sell our services. You are the people who give credibility to our service as you are trying to influence your corporation to consider using our service. You the human resources executive like us must function in the near impossible mission of being an advocate of the employee who has lost their job while at the same time representing the interest of the company. You the human resources executive, because of your role, must become experts in the world of work, so do we. And you, and that includes me as a fourteen year resource manager therefore become our prime contact in the corporate community and sometimes you become a prime candidate for job in our business. So, many people if not most people in our outplacement company and in the American outplacement industry or former human resource people, these are not the only things we have in common. As partners, you and I share the blessing and the responsibility to provide leadership during the most difficult times in corporate life. As we lead companies through change, as we lead job seekers through personal career transition, as we lead worried bosses so that they can be confident enough when they terminate and individual and as we lead management together in communicating the reasons for the lay-offs, and the reasons for the outplacement assistance to their various publics, you know, the news media, the shareholders, the customers, the suppliers and specially the survivors, the remaining employees who are concerned about their former colleagues who must carry on the company´s mission after the downsizing.
Outplacement 2000 and beyond. I believe the only predictable thing in corporate life is change and all this change is going to impact employees everywhere. There are key terms, key words that I believe will describe the business world in the new millenium and I hope you agree: globalization, business volatility, ups and downs, innovation and technology, speed, everything is going to be faster, productivity improvement in order for countries and companies to compete. Talent shortages in certain countries, is America´s most desperate problem right now, as far as the work force is concerned. Increased competition, Germany has learned, for example, that countries in Asia can produce very well engineered products just like Germany does. I think we will see more cross-boarder mergers. Listen to this number: in 1999, there were 3.5 trillion dollars worth of mergers and acquisitions around the world. One trillion of these were cross-boarder, international, global mergers. We will see the need for skills development, we will see more geographic mobility, individuals who work in this country and then two years later in that country and then yet another country. We will see the most dynamic, commercial environment ever and my favorite subject, we will see the blossoming of the human resource function. The emergent of the human resource function as a vital, strategic function. All of this has implications for and demands on the human resources function and as an extension of human resources it has mayor implications for us in outplacement and careers services because it´s all about change, un-precedent and global change. Just as you in human resources are facilitators of change, so are we, in our placement. We corporation must lay-off employees, our consultants make sure the termination process takes place sensitively, efficiently and legally. And for the impact on employees they quickly and effectively look forward to their next position, not backward anymore. Our placement is an employment transition service. We help keep things moving and I think we agree that in this new millenium there will be more movement than ever. So as far as outplacement trends for the new millenium you will see outplacement become active in almost all countries, not just the United States and western Europe and Australia, all countries. We are exploring China now, we are talking about India. Outplacement will be used by companies of all sizes, not just the major corporations who are the biggest users now. Outplacement will be using technology to serve laid-off people in remote areas. You will outplacement firms helping companies transition people within the same company, redeployment and you will see them coaching, executive coaching in order to improve performance in order to avoid being laid off. We have already started to advice companies on strategies, as I said before, to retain good people. So outplacement is becoming more than a one-dimension service, our consultancy has a much broader positioning, we are not just the people who transition laid-off people out. Three words describe our new positioning: adapt, sustain, connect. In the new world of work our assignment is to help employees and their bosses adapt to the new global work-place realities, sustain their employability and connect to new employment opportunities.

One final message. It is not uncommon for outplacement firms to form alliances and partnerships with other businesses. Ours at Lee Hetch Harrison is a very special alliance and very valuable and it is the envy of the industry. ADECCO in 1988 our company was acquired by ADECCO which is now the largest and most valuable and most successful staffing company in the world and is one of the sponsors of this conference. I am proud to say that the cultural fit has been superb. And strategically the synergies have been incredible. As I mentioned before, both Lee Hetch Harrison and ADECCO are in the business of jobs; they are in the business of finding people for jobs, we are in the business of finding jobs for people. We are both in the transition business, aren´t we? They are in the business of transitioning people into companies, we are in the business of transitioning people out of companies; With it´s five thousand offices in fifty-five countries, ADECCO has provided Lee Hetch Harrison with incomparable global reach, helping to finance our growth from four offices in 1998 to one hundred forty, today. We both serve the global human resource community and we are both proud to be extensions of the human resources community. And just as we at Lee Hetch Harrison are honored today to present at your conference, ADECCO presents us with a global platform for expanding our services and meeting professionals like you and you ultimately enjoy the advantage of having many human resources services provided by one family of companies, ADECCO, so I say thank you to the conference planners, specially thank you to some specific people, Mara Herrera, thank you for helping me, Moisés Garcia, the technical guru who helped with the slides and Max Crow our wonderful interpreter. Thank to the conference planners, thank you to ADECCO, and to the Central America Human Resources Community, we look forward to serving you and at this conference meeting you in the.