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HDA Case Studies

Career Transition Support - Engineering Industry

Background

The UK arm of a US headquartered Engineering Company was transferring skills and functionality to the USA, impacting 27 staff in total. HDA worked closely with the European HR Manager to design a career transition programme that would assist with the smooth shutdown process by enabling the staff to successfully make the optimum career transition, whilst at the same time maintaining goodwill and seamless product handover to the parent company. The majority of staff were asked to participate in a shutdown process phased over eight months.

The work team was highly skilled in state of the art software development, operating at the forefront of the profession. The average length of service was in excess of 14 years and as such staff had difficulty benchmarking themselves. They were exceptionally skilled but needed help in accepting this and in transmitting this to prospective employers.

Design and Delivery of the Career Transition Programme

Historically, staff from the company had been supported via the ‘Versatile Support Programme’ (VSP) and allocated 10 units to select options (at a unit cost) from a programme menu.

The agreed programme for the site shutdown incorporated both structured components via a group approach and the flexibility to cope with the individual needs of the staff, resulting in support equivalent to the 10 unit VSP. HDA delivery was at the company’s site, with the co-ordination of events managed jointly by an appointed on site HR representative and a nominated HDA staff member.

Components of the programme:

1. HDA Overview to promote the career transition support provided by the company
2. 1:1 Career coaching meetings
3. HDA workshops
   • Job Search Workshop
   • Interview Preparation
   • Financial Planning and State Benefits
4. Further support available selected by the employees according to their individual needs, from the HDA Versatile Support Programme Menu.
5. Website access for six months
6. Telephone/email support from the Online Consultants for the six month period.

Communication

Details of timings and content were circulated for each group activity, and proactive calls were made to individuals around their projected programme start times. The on-site HR representative contacted each person and timetabled each event.

Results

All staff took up the programme and feedback has been very positive. They have found the workshops very useful, in particular the interview skills and gaining an idea of what questions to expect in an interview.

“The advice from all of the HDA consultants has been invaluable. The consultants have always been available - I've always got advice in a timely manner when I've needed it (by phone and by email). The independence of the advice and its 'general' nature (i.e. not bogged down in the specifics of our particular industry) enabled me to focus on what I needed to”

“Workshops were very professionally run, and highly interactive so it kept one interested throughout. Provided me with information that really helped, which surprised me as I thought that I knew a lot about recruiting.”

The 1:1 career coaching sessions have played a major role in focusing the activities and boosting the personal ability perception of staff. A number of staff chose to take advantage of the HDA Assessment Tool ‘Strengthscope’ as a way of understanding their significant strengths and thus ensuring that any future position allows them to utilise these.

Planned phasing of staff leaving has worked well and they settled into new positions that will continue to challenge their skill level, many at enhanced terms and conditions.

HDA enjoyed an extremely positive working relationship with the HR team, working closely together to ensure the needs and best interests of each employee were met. The company was committed to HDA and the support provided to the affected staff.

"The ultimate measure of whether outplacement has worked or not is if people get jobs in a timely manner. This has certainly been the case with the closure of the UK office and I attribute a lot of this success to the way outplacement was managed. The program we devised with HDA was flexible enough to cope with individual needs and timely so that people got thinking about their future quickly enabling them to make clear decisions. The team at HDA have always been responsive, flexible and professional; it has been a pleasure working with them in this difficult time."

European HR Manager, June 2008

 

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