Roger Cowdrey has a big box of Kleenex on his desk, writes Katherine MacAlister. "People who complete Options often cry, either out of relief or anger," he says.

Roger is chief executive of the Thames Advice Business Centre in Oxford, whose new redundancy programme may be used as a national blueprint by the Government.

But it's not just aimed at those who have been laid off. Anyone who's unhappy at work, keen to get back into the workplace, wanting to downsize or trying to balance work and play, makes an ideal candidate. "Life is like a jigsaw, and if a piece comes out - like redundancy - there's no point trying to cram a similar-shaped piece back in if it didn't fit in the first place," Roger says.

"The A-levels we choose or degree we take may be down to a teacher we liked. Our financial position or a relationship may have dictated the jobs we went for. It's amazing what does actually pre-ordain our lives.

"I've met people who could not do art and science at school because of the timetable, so did maths and computing instead.

"That decision may have changed their lives. "And people get lost on the way. They may have always wanted to start up their own company, retrain or go part-time, but are scared of opting out of the rat-race."

Options doesn't just focus on working lives, it also takes in family and leisure time, to find out where they fit in.

"There is no point finding someone their ideal job if it doesn't fit into their home or social life," Roger explains.

Roger originally designed the package in response to redundancies at Blackwells. "The way I saw it they had four choices: to retrain, become self-employed, take up a similar job or make a career change. Then I realised there was no formula to help them make this decision and came up with Options," he says.

The programme takes candidates right back to the start, to discover values, skills and when to use them, and what people actually want out of a job.

Then it asks them to describe a fantasy career, day and life, and compare them with the reality. The final test is highlighting any areas of dissatisfaction.

Roger then helps them reach a conclusion on the best path to take. All this is done on a one-to-one basis and can take from half a day to several sessions. Word of the scheme's success has reached high places. Roger was recently asked to speak at the Third Age Conference, set up by the Government to deal with unemployment among the over-45s, and directors agreed it needed to become a national programme.

And staff running similar organisations to TBAC have been flocking to Oxford from all over the country to copy Roger's idea.

Story date: Tuesday 19 October

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.