Contented Outplacements

Resilience in Redundancy is an innovative and certificated development programme that aims to support the outgoing workforce emotionally, personally and practically in their transition. We aim to help employees reinvent themselves and to reduce litigation and reputation risk to the company, as well as the negative impact on productivity.

Our service can benefit employer and employees – both leaving and surviving. We can embed additional organisational benefits (such as CSR, PR and other creative efficiencies) during an initial scoping and design exercise.

Contented provides a positive quality solution for organisations needing to consult with staff over major change.

Company benefits:
- Reduces risk of employment tribunals
- Reduces slump in productivity and workforce attrition during transition
- Reduces risk to company reputation
- Contributes to fulfilment of consultation obligations
- Supports business improvement

Employee benefits:
- Greater confidence and resilience to change;
- Accelerated and managed progress through the emotional stages of bereavement, managed in a ‘safe’ and highly-supportive space;
- An appreciation of redundancy as an opportunity, with a new vision, SMART goals, personal action plan and a new CV or biography that reinvents themselves;
- Networking skills and signposting (face-to-face and social media) and ‘start-up’ contacts (research skills)
- Entrepreneurship and self-employment tools, interview practice, ‘live’ presentations and innovative work placements;
- Other outcomes as specified and agreed with the client and employees.

Activities can include:
Scoping with clients, tailored design process, creative group workshops, ad hoc peer-coaching & mentoring, pick & mix enterprise placements, networking events:
Step 1: Resilience (eg explore emotional issues and think positively about change)
Step 2: Reinvention (eg developing personal vision and reframing CV)
Step 3: Enterprise (eg presentation and portfolio management skills)

What’s different about the Contented way?
Our holistic programme applies leading-edge psychology and the neuroscience of leadership to a highly-personalised framework that might otherwise only be accessed by executives, children or vulnerable adults. We treat each person as an individual with respect and dignity, creating safe creative spaces for them to reinvent themselves, explore personal identity and develop new personal visions and self-confidence.

Positive outcomes
A slump in productivity is just one of many negative side effects of a company experiencing downsizing, delayering, rationalisation or any process which results in redundancies. In our experience, the atmosphere changes overnight from that of a positive, productive organisation to one where all on-going activities start to suffer. This can cause the business to stagnate for a prolonged period, increasing absenteeism and even unplanned workforce attrition.

Employers benefit greatly from quality outplacement support that makes the ‘survivors’ feel more secure. They notice how colleagues directly affected help create a positive atmosphere as their emotions are addressed. As well as mitigating any guilt, this creates a supportive atmosphere for those preparing to move on.

The Contented approach helps everyone see redundancy as the end of a chapter rather than the end of the book. The whole workforce stays focussed on business aims, using the goodwill of the company to discover a new future and help everyone to turn the page enthusiastically.