Outplacement Services
in Madison, Wisconsin

Outplacement services in Madison are employer-sponsored career transition programs for employees leaving through a layoff, reduction in force, restructuring, merger, acquisition, site closure, or voluntary separation. Relevante pairs each Madison participant with a dedicated Certified Career Coach and provides resume development, LinkedIn optimization, interview preparation, job-search strategy, networking guidance, and offer negotiation support until that person lands a new role.

Relevante uses a two-tier, per-onboarded-participant pricing model for Madison employers. There are no setup fees, no minimum commitments, no platform fees, and no per-session or per-deliverable charges. Each tier is all-inclusive and covers coaching until reemployment, resume and LinkedIn rebuild, unlimited mock interviews, accessibility accommodations, employer communications support, and full audit-quality reporting. Request a proposal for pricing sized to your population and timing.

Until they land. There are no 3-, 6-, or 12-month caps. A Madison participant who lands in 30 days completes the program in 30 days; one who needs four and a half months in a difficult segment receives four and a half months of coaching at the same intensity with the same coach. There is no tier downshift after 90 days and no transition to a self-service portal.

For participants at the VP level and above, Relevante provides executive outplacement. The coaching keeps the search strategy confidential, positions the resume for executive roles, helps participants explore board and advisory options, and supports negotiation of the package. The executive outplacement answer below also describes how executive participants are matched with coaches.

Relevante serves Madison, Dane County, and the area around Madison. Because the program is delivered virtual-first, a participant's home address within that area has no bearing on the coaching.

Yes, at the employer's option. On-site notification-day support, group briefings, and manager preparation are available for Madison-area locations alongside the standard virtual-first delivery model. Remote and hybrid employees attached to a Madison site receive first contact within 24 to 48 hours by their preferred channel.

Relevante's standard is first contact with each referred Madison employee within 24 to 48 hours of receiving the referral. The Services Agreement is executed via DocuSign, no integration with the employer's IT systems is required, and there is no proprietary platform to provision. This is the normal operating mode at every engagement size, from a single executive separation to a multi-cohort reduction.

Yes. A 100% Placement Guarantee is included in the per-participant fee at no additional charge; it is not an upcharge or a premium tier. Coaching continues with the same dedicated coach until the participant secures a new role, completes a deliberate next-chapter transition such as a phased retirement or consulting practice, or voluntarily exits the program.

Approximately 80% of actively engaged participants secure a new role within three months. Relevante's 2025 Net Promoter Score is 74 based on a survey of 1,045 participants, and more than 90% of corporate clients refer displaced employees back year over year. Sixty-plus verified, named participant testimonials across ten industries link to each participant's LinkedIn profile for independent verification.

Yes. Relevante's coaches are Certified Career Coaches with an average of 15 to 25 years of corporate recruiting, HR leadership, and career coaching experience. Credentials on the bench include Certified Executive Coach designations, CIRRC, SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP, HRCI PHR and SPHR, MBA and HR-related master's degrees, and direct healthcare-system CHRO experience. Each coach carries no more than 25 active participants.

Relevante supports Madison employers across financial services, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, materials, information technology, utilities, energy, real estate, consumer staples, consumer discretionary, communication services, and nonprofit organizations. Outplacement is a functional discipline, so coaching depth transfers across sectors with similar functions.

Yes. Relevante supports VP through C-suite leaders alongside professional, technical, frontline, and operational populations. Executive participants are matched with coaches whose backgrounds include executive search, large-organization HR leadership, and direct C-suite experience. Executive coaching covers confidential search strategy, executive resume positioning, board and advisory exploration, and package negotiation.

Two sets of rules can reach a Madison layoff. One is federal WARN. The other is Wisconsin's business closing and mass layoff law, Wisconsin Statutes section 109.07, implemented by Wisconsin Administrative Code chapter DWD 279. According to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD), an employer subject to both laws has to comply with each of them. The notice period is 60 days under both, and the notice must be in writing. A Wisconsin notice must reach four recipients: DWD, each affected employee, any collective bargaining representative, and the highest official of any municipality that hosts the affected site. The Wisconsin law reaches employers with at least 50 employees in the state, though DWD 279.01 leaves federal and state government, their political subdivisions, and charitable or tax-exempt institutions and organizations out of the definition of employer. Wisconsin's law is triggered by a business closing, meaning a permanent or temporary shutdown that affects at least 25 employees, whether of an employment site or of facilities or operating units at an employment site or within a single municipality. It is also triggered by a mass layoff, a reduction not resulting from a closing that affects, at an employment site or within a single municipality, at least 25 percent of the workforce or 25 employees, whichever is greater, or at least 500 employees. Each of those Wisconsin figures leaves out new or low-hour employees, defined as employees who worked for the employer fewer than 6 of the 12 months before notice was due or who average fewer than 20 hours of work a week. Federal WARN, which DWD says applies in general to employers with at least 100 employees, treats a single-site shutdown affecting at least 50 employees as a plant closing. A layoff at one site affecting at least 33 percent of that site's employees and at least 50 employees, or at least 500 employees, is a mass layoff. Those two federal counts exclude part-time employees. Federal WARN requires employment losses at one site within any 90-day period to be counted together when each group falls below the minimum but the groups together exceed it, unless the employer demonstrates separate and distinct actions and causes and no attempt to evade. Wisconsin Administrative Code DWD 279.04 says groups of employees affected within a 90-day period may be considered together toward the Wisconsin thresholds, unless the losses result from separate and distinct actions and causes, and only when each group alone falls short of triggering notice. That section also directs DWD to consider a related series of layoffs conducted with the intent to evade the notice requirement as a failure to give timely notice. Under both laws, DWD notes, employees who were owed notice can recover back pay and benefits for up to 60 days. For late notice to local government, the Wisconsin statute directs DWD to assess a surcharge capped at $500 for each day the municipality's highest official is notified late, and federal WARN sets its own civil penalty capped at $500 for each day of violation. Wisconsin Administrative Code DWD 279.08 sets out exceptions under which an employer is not liable for failing to give notice if DWD determines one applies. An October 2026 reading of three annual DWD listings of layoff notices, the earliest of them for 2024, finds 13 original notices whose city field reads Madison alone. Revisions appear on those listings as separate rows, and the 13 does not include them. DWD also cautions that the number of workers ultimately laid off may differ from the number in a notice. This is general information rather than legal advice; confirm your specific obligations with employment counsel before setting a notification date.

No. Neither Wisconsin's business closing and mass layoff law nor federal WARN contains an outplacement requirement, so neither obliges a Madison employer to provide it. Employers offer it to reduce litigation and unemployment cost exposure, protect their reputation in the local business community, steady the employees who remain, and contribute to the good-faith record relevant to EEOC, OFCCP, ADEA and OWBPA, and WARN obligations. On age, DWD says the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act applies to virtually all private and public employers, regardless of the number of employees, and protects workers age 40 and older, while the federal ADEA applies only to employers with 20 or more workers.

Remaining staff watch how departing colleagues are treated. Visible, well-run outplacement reduces the risk of negative coverage, protects the morale of remaining staff (a documented factor in voluntary attrition after a reduction), and supports the candidate pipeline the employer will need again. Relevante provides leader talking points, manager notification toolkits, and remaining-staff communication guidance with every engagement.

The primary financial return is unemployment cost avoidance. Every week of search time eliminated against the employer's state unemployment insurance reserve is recoverable program value. As a rule of thumb, if a program reduces average time-to-placement by even four to six weeks across the engaged population versus an unsupported search, the unemployment-cost savings alone typically exceed total program fees, before legal-risk avoidance, employer brand, remaining-staff morale, and candidate-pipeline value are counted.

AI is used in narrowly scoped, supervised ways to assist coaches: resume ATS-readability and keyword analysis, LinkedIn optimization review, interview-question generation for mock preparation, and market and compensation reference. There is no AI chatbot, no AI coach substitute, no algorithmic job matching, and no AI-driven participant scoring. No participant PII or client confidential information is submitted to public or consumer AI services, and no participant data is contributed to AI training datasets.