For decades, People & Culture leaders have been asked to justify the ROI of outplacement using the same lens applied to almost everything else in business. Efficiency. Cost savings. Speed.
How quickly did people land another role?
How much legal or reputational risk was reduced?
How many sessions were attended?
These aren't the wrong questions. I use them myself. But they're incomplete.
They measure closure. They track transactions. They tell us very little about how people experienced leaving, or what that experience created next.
Employer brand, transparency, and trust shape every future hiring decision and every quiet conversation about whether to stay or go. That gap matters more than most leaders realise.
I spend a lot of time with CEOs, HRDs, and CPOs navigating restructures and redundancies. What I see again and again is a growing discomfort with narrow definitions of ROI. Leaders know, often instinctively, that the way exits are handled leaves a long tail. Sometimes that tail becomes goodwill. Sometimes it becomes a problem they inherit months later.
So the question isn't whether outplacement has a return. It clearly does. For me, the question is whether we're measuring the right return.
Start with why. Why do you offer outplacement at all?
I'm a long-time student of Simon Sinek’s work, particularly his insistence on starting with why.
When organisations talk about why they offer outplacement, the answers often sound like this:
- It's part of policy
- It reduces risk
- It helps people land faster
- It's what the market expects
I agree with all of this. But, if those are the only reasons, outplacement becomes a compliance exercise. Something that happens once the hardest conversation is over.
When I ask leaders to go one level deeper, a different set of reasons usually surfaces:
- We want to treat people with dignity, especially when it's hard
- We want to support a real transition
- We want to preserve trust with those who leave and those who stay
- We want our actions to match the values we talk about when times are good
If those are the real reasons, then measuring ROI purely by time to re-employment starts to feel misaligned.
Perhaps a more honest question might be: did the experience reflect the values we say we lead by?
The leadership miss we rarely name
The leadership miss I see most often, and it's rarely said out loud.
The belief:
“If we move quickly, keep it clean, and get people placed fast, we’ve done our job.”
On paper, that looks responsible. Decisive. Even kind.
In reality, speed can be double-edged. Yes, it can reduce uncertainty. But it can also act as a buffer between leaders and discomfort. It allows organisations to get through the process without sitting with the human impact they are creating.
The miss isn't valuing efficiency. The miss is confusing speed with care.
I've watched organisations hit every timeline and metric they set, while quietly eroding all trust with the people who stayed - that end up leaving soon after. I've also seen slower, more deliberate approaches create steadier teams, stronger advocacy, and far less second-guessing 6-months later.
Fast exits don't automatically equal responsible leadership.
Sometimes they just mean we didn't stay long enough to understand the cost.
It's a belief worth examining more closely.
Traditional ROI matters. It's just not enough on its own
There is absolutely a place for traditional metrics. They serve a commercial purpose and they shouldn't be abandoned.
Common measures include:
- Time to re-employment
- Salary recovery
- Cost comparison between limited and extended support
- Reduction in legal disputes or claims
These metrics are practical, trackable, and familiar. They help boards and executives make decisions. And they matter.
But they mostly tell us how efficiently the organisation exited people, not how responsibly it did so.
A 2024 report from Randstad RiseSmart found that 74% of HR leaders still rely on time to re-employment as the primary measure of success. At the same time, more than 60% of participants said emotional support and reputational care were just as important as finding a new job.
I think that gap should make us all pause.
If we're measuring only what’s easiest to quantify, we risk missing what actually shapes trust, loyalty, and brand long after the program ends.
What leaders signal on the way out
Redundancy is one of the moments where leadership is most visible, even when leaders aren't in the room.
Outplacement isn't just a service offered to those exiting. It's one of the clearest signals an organisation sends about what it values when things get uncomfortable.
To those leaving, it says: you mattered, even though our business reality has changed.
To those staying, it says: we don't abandon people when it gets hard.
To future hires, it says: we can't promise certainty, but we can promise decency.
This is what it looks like for leaders to "go first" on the way out. Not by words, but by the standard they set when people are most exposed.
Trust is one of the most cited ingredients of high performance. It's also one of the easiest things to fracture during restructures.
The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer showed a seven-point drop in trust in employers who handled redundancies poorly. That drop doesn't stay contained. It leaks into engagement, advocacy, and discretionary effort.
This is where many organisations stop measuring too soon.
What happens to engagement scores after a restructure? What does eNPS look like 3-6 months later? What are people saying on Glassdoor or in industry circles? Do referrals hold steady, or do they dry up?
These are lag indicators. They're also signals of long-term health.
A human moment that rarely shows up in reports
Not long ago, I spoke with a senior HR leader the day after another redundancy round.
On paper, it had gone well. The timeline was met. The lawyers were satisfied. Outplacement had been offered immediately. No raised voices. No formal complaints.
She was exhausted.
What stayed with her wasn't the meeting itself, but a moment after. One of the people who had been impacted followed her up and said, "I know this isn't personal. I just wish it hadn't felt so rushed."
That comment landed harder than any legal threat ever could.
Weeks later, the same leader told me something else. The team members who stayed were head down, productive, and compliant. But something had shifted. Fewer questions. Less challenge. A subtle pulling back.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing you'd catch in a dashboard. But enough that she said, "There's something else happening now. I feel like we lost more than the roles we had to remove."
This is the part of ROI that rarely makes it into the conversation. Not because it's soft, but because it's harder to face.
An infinite view. Outplacement as a long game
One of the most useful reframes I see leaders make is shifting from a short-term to a longer-term view.
Instead of asking, how do we get through this restructure, they ask, what legacy does this leave?
Outplacement viewed this way is all about continuity of relationship.
There's a profound difference between treating departing employees as liabilities to be managed and treating them as alumni in the making.
When organisations adopt this lens, new measures of ROI come into focus:
- Alumni advocacy. Are former employees recommending the organisation to others?
- Future talent attraction. Did the process strengthen or weaken the employer brand?
- Cultural resilience. How did departures affect trust among those who stayed?
- Leader and HR wellbeing. Were the people delivering the message supported, or left exposed and burnt out?
These outcomes are harder to capture on a spreadsheet. They're also the outcomes leaders later wish they'd paid attention to.
Outplacement done well leaves a quiet legacy of respect.
Done poorly, it often leaves a scar that reopens at the next hiring round.
A more modern way to think about ROI
I certainly don't want this to sound like an argument for abandoning rigour. It's an argument for balance. A more useful approach to ROI holds operational discipline alongside human insight.
Quantitative metrics still matter:
- Time to re-employment
- Salary recovery
- Redeployment or retention where applicable
- Cost avoidance through reduced legal risk
But they should be complemented by qualitative indicators:
- Participant satisfaction or NPS
- Changes in trust or engagement pre and post change
- Alumni sentiment through surveys or review platforms
- Feedback from HR, managers, and executives involved
- Shifts in talent brand indicators such as application quality
And ideally, by longer-term outcomes:
- Referral rates and boomerang hires
- Burnout or turnover within HR and leadership cohorts
- Cultural feedback at 3-6-12 months
Taken together, these measures tell a much deeper and richer story. They show not just whether people landed, but how they were treated along the way, and what that treatment created.
A pause before the next restructure
Before your next restructure or redundancy process, pause and ask:
- What do we want people to say about how this was handled, once the shock has settled?
- Where are we prioritising speed for certainty, and where might it be costing us trust?
- If one of our strongest performers were impacted, would we be proud of the support they received?
- What support do our HR leaders and line managers actually need to carry this well, not just get through it?
If you can't answer these clearly, the risk probably isn't legal. It's cultural.
A buying lens for outplacement leaders can actually use
If you're investing in outplacement, here are the questions I believe every team should ask providers:
- How do you support the emotional and identity impact of job loss, not just CVs and interviews?
- What happens when someone isn't ready to move fast?
- How do you measure participant experience, not just utilisation?
- How do you support HR and leaders during and after notification day?
- What do organisations typically notice 3-6 months later when this is done well?
If a provider can't answer these without deflecting to volume, platforms, or standard inclusions, that tells you something important.
The return most organisations live with
People don't just remember where they landed after a redundancy. They remember how it felt to be treated on the way out, and they carry that story with them long after the job title has changed.
That's the return most organisations live with.
People deserve better.
