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Workforce Transition Support  ·  Service line 05

Outplacement your people will actually use

A restructure is decided in the boardroom and experienced at a desk. The organisation owes the people leaving something more useful than a login to a portal, and the people staying are watching how it is handled. We provide the part of outplacement that employees actually need on the day they start looking: a professionally written CV, a profile that stands up online, and preparation for the interviews that follow.

Written by a professional Every level, not one template Handled with discretion
Since 2017
Nine years of practice
38 countries
Across five continents
Who It Is For

For the people managing the process

Restructuring is rarely anyone’s main job. It arrives alongside everything else, on a legal timeline, with people you know on the list.

HR directors and heads of people

Running a section 189 process alongside a full role, needing a support offering that is credible with employees, defensible to the executive and simple to administer.

Executives closing a division or site

Where the commercial decision is made and the obligation is to close it properly, including for long-serving people who have not written a CV in 15 years.

HR consultancies and transition partners

Firms advising on the process who need a documentation partner behind them, working to their brand and their timeline rather than competing with them.

What Support Should Actually Include

A portal is not support

Outplacement has a credibility problem, and most of it is earned. Employees are given a licence to a platform, a library of videos and a webinar, and the thing they actually needed was a document good enough to send.

i

The document is the bottleneck

Almost every exiting employee stalls in the same place. They cannot describe 12 years of work in two pages, they do not know what to leave out, and they will not apply until the CV feels right. Solve that first and the rest of the search moves.

ii

Seniority is not one product

A general manager and a plant supervisor are leaving the same process and entering completely different markets. Handing both the same template is how a support programme gets quietly written off by everyone in the room.

iii

The people staying are watching

How exits are handled sets what remaining employees believe about the organisation. That is a retention and employer brand question long before it is a goodwill question, and it is why the quality of the support matters more than the size of the catalogue.

iv

What nobody can promise

No provider can promise anyone a role, and any that does should be read carefully. What can be promised is that every person leaving has documentation that represents them properly and knows how to use it. We are candid about that line with your employees, which is part of why they engage with it.

On the legal process. Retrenchment in South Africa is governed by sections 189 and 189A of the Labour Relations Act, and the consultation process, selection criteria and facilitation requirements are your labour advisers’ territory, not ours. We are not a law firm and we do not advise on the process. We work to the timeline it sets, so that support is available to employees at the point in the process where it is useful rather than after they have gone.
What You Receive

Four things each employee leaves with

i

A professionally written CV

Written by a professional from a structured intake with that individual, positioned for the roles they are realistically targeting and the market they are entering. Not a reformatted version of what they walked in with.

Word and PDFIndividually writtenLevel-appropriate
ii

LinkedIn profile content

Headline, About section and role entries written to be applied to their own profile. We never ask for a password and never access an employee’s account. The content is theirs to paste in, with guidance on how.

Paste-readyNo account accessGuidance included
iii

Interview preparation

A written pack built on their own record: the questions their target roles attract, answer frameworks drawn from what they have actually done, and how to handle the retrenchment question without apology.

Role-specificTheir own evidenceThe exit conversation
iv

Senior exits, at executive standard

Where the process includes executives and senior managers, they are handled by the executive practice, with the positioning depth that level of search requires. Same engagement, same invoice, different standard of work.

Executive practiceBoard and C-suiteSearch-market aware
What To Expect

Administered by us, not by your HR team

01

Brief and scope

Share headcount, the seniority mix and your consultation timeline. A consultant returns a scope, a per-employee quote and a schedule that fits the process.

02

Tiering and briefing

Employees are grouped by level so each receives work pitched correctly. Where the group is large, we run a briefing so people understand what they are being offered and how to use it.

03

Individual intake

Each employee completes their own intake in their own time. No scheduled calls to coordinate, no diary management landing back on HR. A consultant is available to anyone who prefers to talk.

04

Delivery and reporting

Documents go directly to each individual. You receive completion reporting at group level, so you can evidence the support without us disclosing what any individual said.

“

Available before the process concludes

Support offered at the point of notice is used. Support offered after the last working day frequently is not, because by then the person has already sent a hurried CV to 20 places. Where your consultation timeline allows it, we schedule intake so that people leave with finished documents rather than a voucher to redeem later.

Request a Proposal

Tell us the brief, and we will scope it

Share the headcount, the seniority mix and where you are in the process. A consultant returns a scope, a per-employee quote and a schedule that fits your consultation timeline.

No names and no personal details at this stage. A scope only needs numbers, levels and dates.
A consultant responds within one business day, Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00 SAST.

Confidential by default

Restructuring is sensitive long before it is announced. Enquiries are handled by a consultant on the corporate desk, an NDA is available before anything is shared, and we do not disclose that an organisation is a client, during a process or after it.

Every corporate engagement is scoped and quoted before any work begins. Nothing is charged until the scope is agreed in writing. An NDA is available on request, and is signed before material is shared where you prefer it that way.
Considered Questions

Before you enquire

Is this outplacement?
Yes. Workforce Transition Support is our name for it, and outplacement is the word most HR teams and procurement portals use. The service is the employer-funded career documentation and transition support that exiting employees receive, provided by us and administered by us.
Is there a minimum number of employees?
No. We support single senior exits and processes running into the dozens. Pricing is per employee and scales with volume, so the shape of the quote changes with the number, but there is no floor to get through the door.
Do you guarantee that people find jobs?
No, and we would treat any provider who does with caution. We are not a placement business, and executive search sits in a separate company in our group. What we commit to is that every person leaves with documentation that represents them properly and knows how to use it.
How quickly can support be in place?
Scope and quote usually within one business day of a clear brief. From approval, individual documents typically run 3 to 5 business days from each employee’s completed intake, and a group process is scheduled around your consultation timeline rather than ours.
How is employee information protected?
Each employee’s material is handled confidentially and is never shared with the employer. You receive completion reporting at group level only. Information is processed in line with POPIA, and an NDA covering the engagement is available on request.
Our people are at several sites, and some are not office based.
That is normal and it is why intake is written rather than scheduled. Employees complete it in their own time, from a phone if that is what they have, and a consultant is available by telephone or WhatsApp for anyone who would rather talk it through.
Can you advise on the section 189 process itself?
No. Consultation, selection criteria and facilitation are matters for your labour advisers or attorneys, and we do not offer legal advice. We work alongside that process and to its timeline, and we are comfortable coordinating with the advisers running it.
Related Service Line

Senior exits also need a positioning argument

Where a restructure removes executives and senior managers, the market they enter is a search market rather than an advertised one. Executive Branding & Leadership Positioning covers the biography, board profile and public-facing documentation that level of transition calls for.

By consultation
Scoped as one engagement
Executive Branding & Positioning
Supporting one individual rather than a process? The Executive Solutions practice serves leaders directly, at published prices.
Workforce Transition Support · scoped & quoted by headcount

How people leave is remembered longer than why they left.

Every level, individually written · administered by us · completely confidential
Supporting an individual leader rather than an organisation? Executive Solutions.