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Creating an Offboarding Process: 9 Steps to Follow

No matter how great your employee satisfaction is, you’ll eventually have employees who leave your company for new opportunities. Creating an offboarding process helps you better handle these departures. An effective offboarding process can also help your organization in the future.

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What is offboarding?

Employee onboarding gets most of the attention, and for good reason as it sets the tone for a new employee’s experience. But offboarding also plays an important role in the employee lifecycle. Offboarding is the process that happens when an employee leaves your company, whether it’s a voluntary departure or a termination. It’s the separation process that the person goes through and often starts as soon as they submit their resignation. You likely have some type of offboarding process already, even if it’s just collecting the employee’s ID badge and mailing out their last pay stub.

Benefits of creating an offboarding process

When an employee leaves, taking control of the departure process can protect your company in many ways. Some benefits of having a carefully thought-out offboarding process include:

  • Improved security: Having a checklist of items to collect and access to remove helps improve company security. It ensures departing employees don’t share information, access company information or take items they shouldn’t.
  • Less knowledge loss: The process can help transfer knowledge before the person leaves to minimize the impact on operations.
  • Continued productivity: A careful process helps keep your team productive even when a team member leaves and someone new starts. Involved team members know what’s happening and understand the expectations for the transition.
  • Proper documentation: Defining the steps helps you handle all necessary paperwork to have complete and accurate employee records.
  • Potential for boomerang employees: Some employees leave because they feel another opportunity is better, but then decide they miss your company. If you give them a positive offboarding experience, they may be more likely to come back in the future, which earns them the nickname of boomerang employees.
  • Referrals: Another potential hiring benefit is getting referrals from former employees who have a final positive experience during offboarding. They may recommend job candidates or potential customers.
  • Compliance: If your industry has regulations related to an employee leaving, your offboarding process can ensure you follow all the guidelines and requirements.
  • Valuable feedback: Offboarding processes typically include a feedback portion that can help you improve employee retention in the future.
  • Positive culture: Treating your employees well, even when they’re leaving, shows that you value your staff. This makes a positive impression on your current employees.

People involved in offboarding

Offboarding employees may seem like an HR task, but several departments can be involved in the process. The HR department typically coordinates everything and ensures each step is done correctly. Managers and team leaders might handle knowledge transfer and final steps. The IT department usually handles removing permissions for various IT programs. Smaller companies may leave all offboarding tasks to the supervisor or office manager.

Steps to take during offboarding

Creating a customized offboarding process helps you get the most out of each departure. The details of your company or specific positions within the company can affect what you need to do. A departing employee who handles a task that no one else does may need to do more knowledge transfer before leaving. If you work with highly sensitive data or confidential systems, the process needs to address potential security breaches. Here are common components of an offboarding process that you can use to create a customized policy and checklist.

1. Establish the departure timeline

When someone resigns from their position, you usually have roughly two weeks to plan for their departure, although this can vary based on the circumstances. Find out when the employee’s last day will be, so you can create a timeline for the offboarding activities. This helps you plan for things like hiring a replacement and transferring knowledge to other employees.

2. Complete HR paperwork

Every employee will have final paperwork to complete before leaving the job. The paperwork you require may vary based on state labor laws and company policies. Common things include a signed letter of termination, letter of resignation, non-compete forms and non-disclosure forms. You’ll also need to provide relevant information to the departing employee, including how they’ll get their last paycheck, information on vacation pay and how they can get COBRA to continue their health insurance. Your payroll system also needs to be updated to reflect the termination date.

3. Plan internal and external communications

Your other employees need the important details about the departure, especially if it affects them directly. For example, team members may need to take over the person’s duties temporarily, or they may have to train the replacement. Gossip can also spread if you don’t get ahead of the news. Plan a company-wide announcement to keep everyone informed about the staffing change.

You may also want to communicate with external stakeholders. Some companies post a farewell message on their social media accounts or website. If the employee works with vendors, clients or other external parties, you’ll want to let them know about the staffing change and how things will be handled for now.

4. Address security protocols and collect items

Employees have varying levels of security access that you need to revoke before their final day. This includes anything that gives them physical or digital access to your company. You’ll need to collect physical items, such as keys or electronic badges, and remove their credentials from digital products. You may also have company belongings that you need to collect. Some things to do include:

  • Collecting phones, laptops and other devices
  • Gathering uniforms
  • Collecting ID badges, keys and access cards
  • Shutting down the employee’s accounts in company systems
  • Changing passwords for programs using a shared account
  • Changing security system codes or entry key codes
  • Collecting company vehicles
  • Revoking the employee’s company credit card

5. Plan for the transition

Decide how to handle the vacancy. This often involves hiring a replacement, but the hiring process can take several weeks. If the new person isn’t in place before the employee leaves, you may need other employees to fill in temporarily. Decide how you’ll assign tasks going forward, and ensure those people have the support they need. Identify additional training and resources they’ll need.

6. Facilitate knowledge transfer

Your employees each have a unique perspective and set of duties that become second nature to them. When they leave, they also take the knowledge, skills and processes they use daily for those tasks. Even if you have job descriptions for each position, it’s difficult to capture every detail of the daily duties. Transferring knowledge to replacements or other team members helps ease the transition.

Identify the knowledge and documents your company needs to minimize the disruption when the employee leaves. This may include creating a document with instructions for tasks, meeting with other team members, handing over files and training others on systems and processes.

7. Conduct an exit interview

Schedule an exit interview before the person’s last day. The exit interview questions you ask can give you insight to improve the employee experience. The answers can help you identify why the person decided to leave and what might have kept them in their position. A manager or HR team member can conduct the exit interview.

8. Update company information

Keeping company documents and organizational charts current is another aspect of offboarding. Remove the departing employee from the chart. If you’re replacing the person, insert the new employee into the chart. If you’re reorganizing the company and dividing the person’s duties, reflect the changes on the chart. Update your internal and external company directories.

9. Celebrate the employee

Sending an employee off on a positive note can leave the door open for future opportunities. They may be more likely to consider future openings with your company or recommend you to other job seekers. It also gives you one last chance to show your appreciation and thank the employee for their contributions. You might host a lunch or going away party on the employee’s last day so their colleagues can say goodbye. A small gift or a card signed by everyone is also a nice touch.

Best practices for offboarding

Offboarding can look a little different for every company, but it helps tie up loose ends for every employee who leaves. When offboarding, the following best practices can make the process more effective:

  • Focus on positivity: Offboarding can be hectic and involves important processes, but adding a positive tone to everything gives the employee one last good impression of your company. This can affect what they say about the company and whether they consider future opportunities there.
  • Be consistent: Consistency gives each employee a similar experience when they leave the company. That consistency can also ensure you complete every step.
  • Tailor the process: The processes in your company may affect the steps you need to take when offboarding. You may also need to adjust the process for different positions, and some might require more steps than others.
  • Create a checklist: A written checklist keeps the offboarding process consistent and helps avert missed steps. You can print physical copies of the checklist or use a digital version in a workflow program.
  • Make adjustments if needed: New processes often need to be adjusted as you put them into practice. Look for ways to streamline and improve offboarding as you implement the steps.
  • Communicate regularly: Strong communication throughout the offboarding process improves the outcome. The employee who’s leaving needs to understand their part in the process, and other employees need instruction for their roles in the offboarding.
  • Coordinate involved parties: In most companies, multiple people participate in offboarding. Ensure all parties understand their duties and how they work with the other team members.
  • Use automation: While offboarding should always have a personal touch, some tasks can be automated. You might have an online process for completing the exit paperwork, for example. This can simplify the process.
  • Verify compliance requirements: Review the documentation requirements for departing employees. Determine what documents and signatures you need and how you need to store that documentation.
  • Follow up with the employee: Share any relevant information with the departing, such as when they can expect tax documents. You might also let them know of future job openings that fit their skills if you’d like to rehire them.

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