Is Your Severance Policy Strategic Enough?

Severance policies are similar to life insurance policies. Both focus on the departed yet how you build the policy and craft its provisions significantly impact those left behind. Given the role your talent plays in driving innovation and performance — not to mention productivity and overall engagement — a well-crafted severance policy is an essential component of your company’s broader workforce strategy.

In a recent study of Severance Practices Around the Worldconducted by Right Management, 75% of respondents said their companies have formal, written severance policies. The question is whether that policy is strategically effective from a workforce management perspective and aligns to your overall business strategy around engagement and retention. Does it go beyond the legally mandated requirements in your area to become a positive force in helping you attract and retain high-value talent? Or is it just the bare minimum according to local geography/country employment laws and indicative of an employment brand that says, in effect, “There are plenty of unemployed people – we can always find others to work here.”

Here are some issues to consider. Do the severance practices outlined in your policy:

• Send a positive message to remaining employees?
• Enable you to rebuild productivity especially after a large restructuring?
• Align to your corporate values and culture?
• Enhance your company’s brand image?
• Position your company as an employer of choice?

Reading the study, you’ll discover how more than 1,800 senior executives and human resource professionals from 19 countries and 19 industries are designing, managing, and communicating their severance policies – with commentary from Right Management experts. This research-based report can help you benchmark your organization’s severance practices and identify opportunities for improvement.

Your severance policy is one of the keys to ensuring that employee departures have the best possible outcome for the individual while speeding the company’s return to productivity, profitability, and employee engagement. Now is a good time to make sure it supports those objectives.

Download a copy of the Severance Practices Around the World Executive Overview.