Investing in the Working Free Pathfinder Programme – making the case.
- Working Free offers an additional, a supplementary support to traditional outplacement services. People leave organisations for differing reasons – mostly personally positive; sometimes negative. Where positive, offering practical support in moving to an independent work lifestyle is important and specifically appreciated.
- Those leaving under restructuring programmes don’t all want to find roles mirroring the one they’ve just left. Some want to do their own thing. Few know how.
- Many senior people adopting an independent working lifestyle discover a new career– and are grateful for the opportunity.
- In many cases, local – and wider communities are beneficiaries of newly fledged independent workers. A worthy inclusion in corporate CSR programmes.
- Good leavers are worth keeping in touch with– whatever they are doing – it’s a variation on the Alumni concept – successfully adopted by many professional organisations.
- Those retiring under normal conditions don’t all want to go on lots of holidays and look after the grandchildren. Their skills and energies and some aspirations are still there – but their salaries are gone. Their pensions may not be enough. Their ambitions will not have disappeared entirely.
- Employees with an employer mindset and strong Independent Enterprise behaviours are valuable – and often thought of as new thinking.This programme does not magically produce this – but it does lay the foundations for its generation in those who have been through the programme. If you expect your senior people to behave like this, they will respond positively – knowing how to is important.
- Re-engaging former employees on a freelance basis is a small but resident feature within many organisational resourcing programmes. Getting it right and doing more of it is good for business.
- Endowing your own senior people with many of these characteristics is good for them; good for your organisation and good for the community. It should also be good for those still with you – those who run businesses are increasingly looking for results-driven mentalities in their people.
- Modern thinking includes collaborative working. This includes organisations of all shapes and sizes and individuals.