SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration
No 2009:5:
From employed to employable – exploring the outplacement program as a site for career and identity construction
Ilinca Benson ()
Abstract: A relatively new organisational form, of particular
interest for how careers are organised and conceptualised, in the current
labour market, is the so-called outplacement program. Outplacement programs
are a form of compensation package offered to employees that are being laid
off as a part of organizational downsizing. The purpose of such programs is
to provide support in the transition to new employment. The means used are
a combination of economic support and career coaching. Outplacement
programs can be regarded as a kind of Expert Others that attempt to
reorganise the part of the labour market where the job seekers dwell. The
purpose of this paper is to explore how outplacement programs act as
organisers of job transitions processes, and to generate ideas about how
this may influence the perception and the practice of careers. The object
of empirical study in this paper is an outplacement program, Alpha Future,
which was created to host employees made redundant from a large Swedish
state-owned organisation, Alpha. The empirical material consists of
in-depth interviews with coaches from the outplacement program. The
analysis indicates that during the period of the outplacement program
identity work is the work, to a large extent. The program participant’s
career is conceived of as a manifestation of the self and as a reflexive
project for which the individual herself is responsible. Emphasis is placed
on self-reflexive work (through coaching, tests, courses) and
self-presentation work (writing your résumé and application letters,
training for interviews). The program offers a ground for transitory
identification as ”job-seeker”, thereby influencing the status passage
entailed in being made redundant. Furthermore, the program provides a new
normative category, which acts as a mould for the participants to conform
to: the ”employable individual”. This category of identification is not
tied to an organization, a position, or a profession. It is general,
applicable to every one, and it is framed as the recipe for success in a
labour market characterized by market rationalism. Employable individuals,
in this language, adapt to a continuously changing labour market. They are
prepared for a ”protean” career, where they repeatedly have to sell
themselves on the market. The market is not only ”out there”; it also
pervades the inside of organisations. Hence, the paper argues that
outplacement programs function as important sites for socialisation into
the current labour market.
Keywords: outplacement; transition; labour market; work life; organization; identity; employability; down sizing; career; (follow links to similar papers)
20 pages, August 11, 2009, Revised August 12, 2009
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