I'll Get By With A Little Help From My Manager

I volunteered for a couple of hours at a job search fair yesterday. My job was to review the resumes of some of the people came to the fair. As I sat at the table with the other reviewers I felt myself getting uncomfortable, frustrated and even angry. I wasn’t angry with the people who came into the room; I was angry at the companies that let them go.

I understand what is going on in the economy because I am a statistic myself. I realize that as unfortunate as it is, small companies and large companies alike have to let people go. I get that. What irks me though, is that many of these places let their employee’s go without any reinforcement or direction. I don’t care what this lousy economy has done to your business. For Heaven's sake, take care of the people who worked for you. How hard is it to do about ten minutes of research and put together a list of local resources that you can enclose in the termination packet? The internet has an abundance of tools and links to assist the laid off worker. All it takes is a few minutes to type in a key word such as “resume”, “interviewing” or “job search” to connect to a variety of sources.

It is shocking enough to be terminated from your place of employment, whether you enjoyed your job or not. To be unprepared as to how to plan for and begin a job search is daunting and depressing. A little compassion and preparation on the part of the manager or HR department can show the displaced employees that even if you can’t offer outplacement assistance, you can give them some tools to get back onto their feet.

A few blogs ago I posted a list of free our low cost options for the job seeker. If you can't come up with any resources yourself, copy that list and tuck it into the separation packet. It may show the terminated employee (and those left behind) that you have some compassion.