Coach 1st

Outplacement, done differently

Most outplacement providers built their model around seniority. Coach 1st built its model around fairness.

How Coach 1st compares

Support by seniority. Mainstream outplacement: tiered, senior leaders often get six months, less experienced staff three, others no coaching at all, only a portal login. 

Coach 1st: the same programme for every participant.

Coach continuity. Mainstream outplacement: often rotates between coaches or call handlers. 

Coach 1st: one coach, start to finish.

Coaching accreditation. Mainstream outplacement: varies by provider and coach. 

Coach 1st: led by an ICF accredited coach.

Pricing. Mainstream outplacement: typically £500 to £1,750 per participant. 

Coach 1st: £300 per participant, every time.

What the fee pays for. Mainstream outplacement: a significant share often goes to platform and overhead costs. 

Coach 1st: the fee goes to coaching expertise.

What happens after the programme ends. Mainstream outplacement: support typically stops at the contracted period. 

Coach 1st: a clear route back to support if more time is needed.

Platform access. Mainstream outplacement: not always included, or charged as an extra. 

Coach 1st: every participant included, with Outplacement Achieve, our specialist online outplacement support platform.

Three reasons organisations move to Coach 1st

1. Fairness is defensible. In an environment where employees compare notes, offering senior leavers five times the support given to junior staff is increasingly difficult to justify, reputationally and sometimes legally. A single, equitable standard removes that risk entirely.

2. The coaching is genuine, not templated. Stuart Blake, founder of Coach 1st, brings over 40 years of senior recruitment leadership experience at managing director and chief executive level, alongside personal ICF accreditation across career, executive, and confidence coaching. Participants work with a real coach, not a portal.

3. The commercial case holds up. A flat £300 fee against a mainstream market rate of £500 to £1,750 per participant produces substantial savings on any outplacement programme of scale, without reducing the standard of support for anyone.

For HR, procurement, and insolvency practitioners

Coach 1st has delivered coaching and employability programmes for the GLA, and delivery partners including Fourth Rev, Renovo, and Recro Consulting, across cohorts ranging from long term unemployed jobseekers to chief executives and board directors.

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