In our office we often have clients calling us as they are driving home from their termination meeting, and naturally they are in a mix of emotional states. We usually advise them to go home, take a few breaths, let everything sink in, and to call us the next day.
The guiding principle when it comes to mitigation should be a reasonable approach. Some employees may rush home ready for action – jumping quickly on their computer to start sending out resumes. Others are often feeling incredibly wounded by the loss, and need a few days to let everything sink in. At that point they’ll be in no shape to look for work successfully anyway. You may have also set the employee up with outplacement services, which can take several weeks to whip their resume into shape before they are ready to apply broadly.
Remember that reasonable approach. If an employee doesn’t start looking in the first week or two, that likely won’t be held against them. If they’ve done no searching for six months however, that’s definitely a different story.
