Before you help someone find their next job, let them see their options
When an experienced person’s role changes or ends, another job may be the right next move. But they need the chance to understand what else their experience could make possible before being asked to choose.
When a senior person’s role ends, most transition support starts with a familiar question: “How do we help them find their next job?”
It is worth asking another question first. What could they do with the experience they have built?
For someone who has spent years inside one organisation, the answer may not be immediately visible. Their colleagues know why they are trusted. People outside the business see a title and a career history. The work they are capable of doing in another setting still needs to be identified and explained.
That could lead to another employed role or an internal move. It could also lead to consulting, advisory, fractional or project-based work. Yet if the support offered starts and ends with a CV and a job search, people may never get a proper chance to examine those routes.
There is evidence that the uncertainty is real. In a 2026 survey of 11,567 active UK career changers, 49% said figuring out what else they wanted to do was their biggest obstacle, while 47% had drawn on no support at all. The survey was not specifically of people facing redundancy, but it shows how hard it can be to make a move when you cannot yet name the destination.
Interest in independent work is there, too. IPSE found that 39% of employees had considered working for themselves. Its research also found that, among those considering it, people wanted advice on branding and marketing, networking and setting rates—not only tax and business plans. That distinction matters. Registering a business does not tell a former operations director which problem another organisation would pay them to solve, how to describe that work, or where to find the people who need it.
This is the part I think employers can make room for. Let people look at what they have become trusted to handle, who else faces those problems and what each route would demand. If someone wants to test independent work, help them shape an initial offer, build professional visibility beyond their former employer and begin the conversations that will tell them whether there is demand. If they choose another role instead, that same clarity helps them explain what they bring to it.
The order matters. LHH’s 2026 survey, conducted across seven countries including the UK, found a wide gap between HR leaders who said redeployment programmes existed and employees who recognised or experienced them. It does not tell us exactly why that gap exists. It does remind us that providing an option and helping someone see how it applies to them are different things.
An employer does not need to decide which future is best for someone. It can give them the chance to understand their options before the pressure to pick one takes over. And when independent work is one of those options, it deserves a serious route into the market—not a leaflet on how to become self-employed.