Buyer's Comparison
Alternatives to LHH: how boutique outplacement compares.
LHH is the biggest name in outplacement. Biggest and best fit are different questions. Here is how to run the comparison on terms that show up after the contract is signed.
Who LHH serves well
LHH fits global enterprises that need one vendor across many countries under a single contract.
LHH is part of the Adecco Group, operates in dozens of countries, and offers a breadth of workforce services beyond outplacement. If your reduction spans continents, if procurement requires a vendor of that scale, or if you want career transition bundled with broader HR services, the large providers earn their place on the shortlist. That is a real strength, and a boutique should be honest about it.
Why buyers look for an alternative
The common reasons are pooled coaching, programs that expire on a calendar date, limited usage visibility, and slow onboarding.
Enterprise scale comes with trade-offs, and they tend to surface after signature rather than in the proposal: coaching delivered from a shared bench rather than a named coach, support that ends when a program window closes rather than when the person lands, reporting that arrives as a summary rather than a live view, and onboarding that moves at procurement speed. Our research on the gap between what providers advertise and what their participants report is published in The Credibility Delta. Whether any of these applies to a specific vendor is exactly what the written questions below are for.
How FirstSourceTeam compares
Compare on six dimensions: coaching model, duration, usage visibility, unused seats, launch speed, and firm structure.
| Dimension | What to verify with any large provider | FirstSourceTeam |
|---|---|---|
| Coaching model | Ask whether each participant gets a named, dedicated coach or draws from a shared bench, and how coaches are matched. | A dedicated in-house coach per participant on Extended and Enterprise, matched by industry, function, and seniority. |
| Duration | Ask what ends the engagement: placement, a calendar date, or an hours cap. Get the cutoff in writing. | No time caps and no hour caps. Coaching continues until the participant is placed. |
| Usage visibility | Ask what HR can see while the program runs, per participant, and how often it updates. | A live employer dashboard: enrollment, engagement, coaching activity, and outcomes, with exportable audit logs. |
| Unused seats | Ask what happens to the fee when a participant never engages or declines the service. | Declined seats are refunded under a positive-decline policy. Unused money goes back to you. |
| Launch speed | Ask how long from signature to participants meeting a coach, and what procurement steps sit in between. | Running within 48 hours. No MSA cycle; participants get platform access and a matched coach the same day they are added. |
| Firm structure | Ask who owns the firm and how outplacement sits within the wider business. | Family-owned since 2006, and outplacement is the business, not one service line among many. |
On price: we do not publish competitor rates, because quotes vary by population and the public numbers are unreliable. What we can say is that a boutique carries less overhead, and a FirstSourceTeam program is designed to come in around 30 percent below large-firm quotes for a comparable population. Get both quotes in writing.
Questions to ask either vendor
Put these to every finalist in writing. The answers, and the speed of the answers, are the evaluation.
- Who, by name or by model, coaches each participant, and how are they matched?
- What ends the engagement: placement, a date, or an hours cap?
- What can HR see while the program runs, and how current is it?
- What happens to the fee for a seat that is never used?
- How many days from signature to a participant meeting a coach?
- What do your participants, not your buyers, rate the program publicly?
About this comparison
Statements about LHH are limited to its own public materials: ownership (Adecco Group) and global scope. Service terms vary by contract, which is why this page frames the comparison as questions to verify in writing rather than claims about any vendor's current terms. FirstSourceTeam terms describe our standard programs as sold.