As we move into 2020, I have (like many of you) read plenty of articles that summarized the past decade and other blogs/posts/videos making bold predictions about the next ten years. Never to miss a chance to jump on the bandwagon (slight joke), I have decided to make some bold predictions on the future changes of outplacement and career transition service for the next ten years.
I will be putting my predictions in a time capsule (actually an Outlook folder) and will review my prognostications in January 2030.
Here is what I believe will be the future of outplacement will be.
Landing Rates Will Become The Key Success Metric
The objective of providing outplacement services has always been to help the displaced employee find a new job by providing career management services such as resume development, Linkedin training, interview practice, and job search strategies. The present reality is that this objective is difficult to meet when constrained employer budgets cannot provide delivery programs that will enough time for a candidate to successfully land.
The answer will not necessarily be providing longer-term programs involving more consultant time. There will be a technology solution that is going to make the job search process more productive (more on that below) and make the candidate/consultant engagement time more productive.
The Reinvention and Disruption Of Job Search Model
The present-day method of finding in many ways has not changed in the past ten years. The online job boards (the last significant disruption in job search) have not changed very much since their introduction. Consider that CareerBuilder is now 25 years old, and Indeed (the most-current big disrupter) is now 16 years old.
Talent acquisition is essentially a matching process between employers and candidates. This process has been inefficient for all involved parties (employers cannot find the right talent and candidates face the ATS black hole). Tech solutions such as LinkedIn (now 18 years old) have helped connect people but the promise of a frictionless talent marketplace is still in the distant future.
I think that there is a tech solution where a frictionless talent marketplace will emerge in the next decade. The tech entrepreneur who can create a model where every person can – at any time – check out jobs that truly meet their qualifications will be able to create massive productivity gains for employers due to filling open positions quicker. This new talent exchange is will also help layed off candidates' land faster and make their outplacement program shorter and more effective.
Legal Changes Impacting Terminations and Freelancers
I think that the political climate in the USA is going to become more democratic in the next ten years. There are going to be tailwinds pushing states (most likely California) to create stronger employee protections. Some of these protections may include addressing “employment-at-will” allowing employers to lay or fire employees for no reason. I believe that the European model that provides greater protections (and greater outplacement and career transition support) will be reviewed and possibly implemented in one or more of the liberal states.
I also think that healthcare is going to become more accessible and affordable due to the much needed legislation changes. Once healthcare is fixed, freelance and gig work will scale rapidly because the massive insurance premiums for individual policies will not present a barrier to entry for the potential entrepreneur.
The gig economy is also going to be radically different by 2030. There is going to be greater scrutiny on worker classifications with a push towards classifying more workers as employees. The new California law will make it more difficult for employers to classify workers as contractors. In the short term, employers will scale back their contractor use. In the long-term, I think that these changes will create a Gig Economy 2.0 where greater protections will attract even more people to explore freelance work.
I firmly believe that outplacement and career transition services help people who need it the most – those whose economic security and self-image threatened by unemployment. I have dedicated the past ten years, assisting candidates in tackling these fears and move towards a new future.
Outplacement of the future, with the help of technology, will become more effective. The time a candidate spends in transition will shorten, the opportunities will be more accessible to find and pursue, and the career options of being an employee or freelancer will improve.
I look forward to writing about my predictions in 2030. Besides what I get right and wrong, I look forward to seeing the changes that I did not predict.
