When I first started posting on redundancy here back in March 2009, I couldn’t find any government help that referred specifically to those who had recently been made redundant or those who’d who’d voluntarily left a job and only been out of work for a short time.
Back then it seemed that the government agency and its contractors’ help was concentrated on those people who had been out of a job for whatever reason for more than six months. I believe the thinking at that time was that the majority of people out of a job would find themselves another position reasonably swiftly, using the traditional means: Responding to job adverts in the media, going via recruitment agencies/ consultants or Jobcentre plus.
That was probably a reasonable approach with limited resources when there were comparable jobs around to be had. But nobody in government seemed to be taking into account or acknowledging that we were entering exceptional times.
One chap in the recruitment agency industry posted about Response to Redundancy, which seemed to be a new government funded initiative to help those that had lost their jobs get back into work, in August of 2009. I admit that I only came across that reference recently and I don’t believe the scheme existed existed when I originally wrote the book five months earlier. The main concerns in this guy’s post were these:
Many providers of the service (contractors from charities to commercial organisations) were having problems finding candidates to take them up on it.
Not enough people knew of its existence: The providers were being paid an amount on sign up of participants but the lion’s share of government money was paid out largely on results. The profits weren’t huge per individual placed in a job and the providers were those who’d won contracts for specific geographical areas and so were restricted to where they could ‘tout their trade’. So they relied on central government advertising the scheme on their behalf…
It’s 16 months on since then and another round of government contracts have been awarded in the Response to Redundancy initiative so what’s on offer and how successful is the scheme proving to be?
The Response to Redundancy help on offer seems to vary from one-day workshops on subjects like CV writing, interview techniques and networking tips, to more in-depth courses lasting several weeks. In some areas support ceases once a job’s been found whereas in others it’s ongoing.
I’m not knocking any of these: they can all help (and each features in my own book ‘Redundancy: Survive and Thrive’ and the workshops, courses and programmes we run). But they’re only a part of what you’re likely to need. And, similar in some ways to the NHS, what’s available in real delivery terms of Response to Redundancy to individuals on the receiving end seems to be something of a post code lottery.
Tip: If you’ve not yet been introduced by your Jobcentre Plus to what’s on offer in your area: Type ‘Response to Redundancy’ plus ‘your town’ into Google and suss out what’s available. Arm yourself with that for your next Jobcentre Plus appointment and tell them what workshops or courses you want to go on!
Please let us know about good Response to Redundancy contract providers. Share wherever is good for folk to go for help.
PS Look out for the next post for ideas on different thinking that just might get you a lot further than traditional thinking…