Why Laburo is taking a different approach to outplacement

by Joseph | 19 May 2026

If you spend any time looking at the outplacement market, you keep seeing the same names come up: LHH. Right Management. Korn Ferry. Randstad. Careerminds.

They are all well known. They all have their place. And they all tend to talk about the same kinds of things too. Career transition. Redundancy support. Workforce change. Helping employers do the right thing during difficult periods.

And to be fair, that all matters.

If you are in HR and you are dealing with redundancies, you are trying to balance a lot at once. You want to support people properly. You want to protect the business and the brand. You want to make sure whatever support you put in place is actually useful. And you probably want some confidence that the provider you choose knows what they are doing.

That is exactly why the bigger outplacement providers are often the first names people look at.

But I think there is another conversation worth having, which is not really about whether those businesses are credible, because clearly they are. It is more about whether the old outplacement model still feels good enough for what people need now.

That is where Laburo is different.

Not because it is trying to be louder for the sake of it. And not because it thinks employers have been getting it wrong. More because it is looking at the same problem from a slightly different angle.

The basic idea is pretty simple really. Employers still need a platform they can trust and feel confident buying. That part does not go away. But the people receiving the support also need more say, more relevance, and a better experience once they are in it.

That is the bit that has been missing in quite a lot of outplacement.

A lot of the traditional setup has been very provider led. The employer picks the provider, the programme gets rolled out, the employee gets access, and that is the support. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes it feels a bit fixed, a bit distant, a bit like something that has been designed around the process rather than the person.

And that matters, because people going through redundancy are not all in the same place:

• One person wants to get straight back into the market and needs help with interviews.
• Another needs to rebuild confidence first.
• Another needs to sort their CV out because it has not been touched for years.
• Another is thinking, I do not even want the same sort of role again.
• Another is wondering whether this is the moment to finally start a business.

That is a very wide range of needs. So it makes sense that the support should be able to flex around that and that is one of the things Laburo has leaned into from the start.

It gives coaches more autonomy to coach in the way they actually coach best, instead of trying to squeeze everyone into one fixed model. That might sound like a small point, but I do not think it is. Good coaches are good because of how they work, how they connect with people, the way they challenge them, the way they help them think things through, the way they build confidence, or get practical very quickly when needed.

Choice is empowerment

If you flatten all that into one standardised programme, you lose a lot of the value. That's why Laburo gives coaches room to bring more of what makes them good in the first place.

At the same time, it puts more power back in the hands of the people receiving support. Again, not in a way that cuts the employer out of the picture. More in a way that makes the employer’s investment work harder.

Because if someone can see more of the coaches available, get a feel for them, read reviews, understand who might suit them best, and then make a more informed choice, they are much more likely to actually engage with the support. And that point is bigger than it sounds.

One of the quiet issues in outplacement has always been take up. Companies buy it for the right reasons, but not everyone uses it fully. Sometimes that is because they are overwhelmed. Sometimes because they do not really understand what is there for them. Sometimes because it feels too generic and they do not think it will help.

If you can improve that, you improve a lot:

• You improve engagement.
• You improve trust in the process.
• You improve the chances of someone actually getting value from it.

And that should matter to HR, because there is no point buying support that looks good in a proposal if the real life experience does not land properly with the people it is meant to help.

Technology matters

A lot of businesses say they use tech. A lot say they use AI. That is becoming standard language now. But there is a difference between adding technology to an old model and building something that genuinely uses it to build a better experience at its core.

Laburo’s view is that AI, reviews, smart matching, platform design and content should all work together to make support feel more relevant and more useful. Not colder. Not more automated for the sake of it. Just better.

That might mean helping someone find the right kind of support faster. It might mean surfacing more useful content at the right point. It might mean using data and feedback to help people make better decisions around which coach they want to work with. It might mean making the whole thing feel more responsive and less like a static programme somebody gets dropped into.

And then alongside the coaching side, there is also a whole bank of content and support around it. Which is important, because people do not move through redundancy in a neat straight line. Some days they want practical help. Some days they need perspective. Some days they just need to feel like there is a way forward.

The mix matters even more

What is interesting to me is that this does not really undermine the role of HR in choosing an outplacement provider. If anything, it strengthens it.

Because the HR decision is no longer just, "which provider do we buy?". It becomes, "which platform gives our people the best chance of actually finding support that works for them?". And that is a much better question to ask.

The bigger providers still position themselves around scale, heritage, process and proven delivery. There will always be buyers who value that most. Totally fair enough.

But there is also a growing case for something that feels more adaptive, more personal, and frankly a bit more in touch with how people actually navigate career change now.

That is where Laburo has a strong story, One that it's not trying to pretend employers do not matter in the buying process. Of course they do.

It is saying the best outplacement model is one where the employer can choose a credible platform with confidence, and then that platform gives coaches the freedom to coach properly, gives users more choice over who supports them, and uses AI, reviews, content and technology in a way that actually improves outcomes.

That feels like a much healthier balance and it probably reflects real life a bit better too. Because the truth is, nobody wants outplacement just to exist:

• They want it to help.
• They want people to use it.
• They want it to feel worthwhile.
• They want those leaving the business to feel supported, not processed.

That is the bit Laburo is really trying to get right.