An effective way of Employee Off-boarding

Introduction

Offboarding is an important part of any business that is usually ignored. Offboarding refers to the process that occurs when an employee leaves a company, whether through resignation, termination, or retirement. It includes critical steps such as responsibilities transfer, equipment inventory, and an exit interview. Offboarding successfully can help a company maintain its positive reputation.

Every Organization gives enormous importance to welcoming an employee. Similar to how "goodbye " is also equally crucial because the moment of departure significantly impacts the recipient's perception of their worth or value. However, a well-structured procedure considering how you want the Employee to feel and how to maximize the long-term benefits makes offboarding employees a less stressful and troublesome experience. Missing out on standard offboarding practices can have unfortunate consequences like regulatory infractions, data breaches, a lack of knowledge transfer, etc.

What is Employee Offboarding?

In any organization patience and endures is an essential skills that will make an employee reliable and trustworthy. As in any working operation, individuals work in teams, if one individual in a team is not patient and is in a hurry of making a point or acts impatient and all efforts and hard work of other team members can look unreliable.

Importance of Offboarding

Why should you pay special attention to the Employee's exit now since they are already leaving? Employers emphasize developing onboarding strategies, training opportunities and workplace happiness. But, You can also use other factors to enhance the working employees. Companies with good employer brands receive double as many applications as those with a poor image. Offboarding indicates your concern towards your employees. The goal of an excellent offboarding process is not to regain the resigned Employee; instead, it helps to create a cheerful farewell and perspective of you as an employer. Offboarding aids in building ambassadors who maintain the brand of your Organization. Additionally, a successful offboarding procedure opens the way for boomerang employees, which helps in saving recruitment costs by rehiring. Former employees may become customers or clients.

Do’s and Don’ts in employee Offboarding:

Offboarding's Do's:

Maintain adequate offboarding records.
Exit interviews should be conducted and assessed.
Build and sustain an active alumni network program.
Create a recruitment strategy centered on boomerang employees.

Offboarding Don'ts:

Closing the gates completely instead of maintaining relationships.
Remember that former employees may appreciate the chance to help in the future.

A step-by-step plan for setting up an offboarding:

1. Effective communication during departure:

Inform the Organization about the Employee's departure.
Initially, Employee's immediate colleagues should be informed.
Inform clients, partners, or other individuals with whom your Employee frequently interacts.

2. Inform Payroll (HRIS if applicable):

Consider all the perks and bonuses that might need to be disabled.
Start early so that you can quickly "flip a switch" on the last day.

3. Offboarding checklist:

Create distinct employee and employer checklists.
Documenting the departure and validating the final day of employment.
Collecting all the company belongings like ID cards, laptops, etc...
Blocking access to the system
Signing a confidentiality agreement
Final payment processes completion

4. Transfer of Knowledge: Before the transfer, there are some crucial questions to address.

Who is going to train and onboard the new employee?
Who is going to replace him/her?
What training is necessary for him or her?
Access how complex and long will it take to hand over the roles and responsibilities?
It is necessary to ask the departing employee to make his knowledge or work documented so that it will be easier for the new entrant to adopt.
What tasks must be finished before the employee departs?

5. Waving goodbye in dignity:

Arranging a good farewell gives a good impact on the employee and the existing employees.
Send a farewell notice on the final day is advisable to remind the rest of the team to wish the departing employee well.
Make sure to express your gratitude to the employee for their contribution to the team.
End up making the farewell as personal and visible as you can by including pictures, for instance.

6. Actively communicate with the former employees :

Create a network.
Former employees may act as ambassadors.
Alumni are those who promote the organization to the prospective employees.
Former Employees may seek employment.

7. Setup an exit Interview: It’s the time to Receive Honest Feedback.

You can better understand management style, procedures, and employee morale by conducting exit interviews.
It helps you to know the Organization's strengths and weakness
Consider all the feedback seriously without arguing.

Exit Interview Questionnaire:

If there is any way we can improve
What should we be doing instead of not?
What best describes our culture?
Whom do you most admire and why?
Do you think the employment met your expectations?
Did internal politics restrict you from performing your duties well?
Did you get feedback to help you get better at what you were doing?
Have you been able to fully develop yourself?
What could we have done to convince you to stay?
Would you suggest our organization to friends seeking a job?

Conclusion

Offboarding is a critical component of any business. It reduces confusion and ensures that employees leave as supporters of the company rather than adversaries. It can also give employees the option to return if they so desire. Take the time to create an effective offboarding process because the benefits include the ability to re-engage previous employees and identify potential areas of concern so that any issues can be resolved quickly.

"Communication can begin at any time, but it must end only with smiles". A properly executed offboarding process enables you to complete all required paperwork and legal requirements but for the employee, it should be a memorable wave-off. Utilize an alumni network to keep in touch with your former employees. If you’re looking to replace any employees you have offboarded, contact us. Take a look at our services to see how we can help you.