PPS Prep – Halve Your Effort & Double Your Outcomes

Post Placement Support (PPS) is the service provided to job seekers and employers in the first 26 weeks of employment. It is designed to maximise the chances of sustainable employment for the job seeker and employer satisfaction with their new employee.

PPS is a proven strategy for achieving sustainable placements, maximising outcome fees, and building performance ratings in the jobactive and Disability Employment Services environments. PPS can improve job seeker retention in employment when there is a planned approach to maintaining regular contact with both job seekers and employers. It enables early intervention if problems arise and encourages the building of quality relationships that increases opportunities for repeat business.

Discuss with your Job Seeker

PPS is something that needs to be discussed with every job seeker when they commence into your services. Discussing this early, allows the job seeker to future pace themselves into employment and understand the support available to them.

Before speaking with the job seeker think of the benefits that they would appreciate. Every person is different in what they value so it’s best to do this every time you market to a new job seeker. Also, try to determine the best way to market this information to them. Would they like to hear it? Read it? See it?

Build Rapport

Having rapport with your job seekers is integral to sustainable employment outcomes. When you have rapport a job seeker is more likely to disclose information to you and notify you if they find their own employment.

Rapport is what connects one person to another and allows any form of relationship to develop. Rapport can be built through things like similar interests, values, beliefs, goals, even just through simple body language. If you can find just one thing that you can relate to a person about, the battle of getting to know them is half won.

Understand how others Communicate

Each person has their own way of giving and receiving information, through observation and good listening skills you can determine what these are. There are 4 types of communicators; kinaesthetic (touch & feel), auditory (listening), visual (seeing) and digital (factual). Based on the words your job seeker uses such as “I feel like I’m getting this”, “I hear what you’re saying”, “Do you see what I mean?”, “How many others has this worked for?” and looking at how they interact with the world around them, you can categorise and deliver your information in a much more digestible way.

Assess the risks

It is important when meeting with the job seeker to discuss their new employment, that the risks of the placement are discussed and a plan to minimise the risks is put in place. Always assess each risk and create a strategy to mitigate that risk. For example their ability to access transportation could be a risk that is mitigated by utilising the Employment Fund for the job seeker to get a taxi to their place of work in the early stages.

Make a contact plan

Everything runs smoother with a plan. Make sure you set up a process for how you think it is best to contact both the job seeker and the employer. Take into consideration the frequency of contact, method of contact, and if they will contact you or you will contact them. Always note down each contact point or attempted contact point. They will come in handy if you have multiple PPS contacts.