According to its corporate literature, the company sponsoring today’s lunch lecture is “designed to assist employers with employee termination issues and, after termination, to help separated employees develop skills and define career strategies to assist them in finding new employment.”
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Today, Right Associates has brought Carole Hyatt, author of Shifting Gears–How to Master Career Change and Find the Work That’s Right for You, to Chicago to talk about her book. About 60 people are munching on a sumptuous buffet at the stuffy University Club downtown–people from Commonwealth Edison, Citicorp, American National Can, Ernst & Young, First Chicago, Continental Bank, Bell & Howell, Jenner & Block, Sara Lee, Quaker Oats, and Sears. People from companies that fire people. These people use words like “outplacement,” “slimming down,” “corporate leaning,” “downsizing,” and “demassing” instead of words like “fired,” “canned,” “laid off,” “pink slipped,” and “better find a new job.”
“We catch people at the worst time in life,” John Gable, director of client services at Right Associates, tells me before Hyatt starts her talk. “Of course, some are glad it happens. They weren’t happy anyway. We’re a career transition service. We help with career shifts. If they needed psychotherapy, they would get it. We’d funnel them [to any services they’d need]. If there are chemistry problems, technical obsolescence problems with a former employee, we help with career counseling.ÉWhat doesn’t fit one pistol may fit another.”
“A lot of times people fail because they’re not fitting properly. With outplacement, it’s so wonderful an opportunity to find the right fit.”
