Organisations that put their people first will always get better recruitment and retention results. Even when someone is leaving the organisation, whether it’s retirement, another job offer, redundancy, or anything else, it’s important to remember this too is part of the employee experience and directly impacts your employer brand. While you may have heard of an onboarding process, you should know that creating an employee offboarding process can be just as important.
Employee turnover is inevitable, and while there are ways you can improve retention, there will always be people who eventually leave the organisation. Implementing an effective offboarding will help to ensure that when this time comes, you’ll set both the former employee and employer up for success by ensuring a smooth transition. It will also allow you to leave the relationship on a positive note, which can open up new referral opportunities in the future.
How can you create an impactful offboarding experience? Read on to find out!
What is an offboarding process?
Before we get to that, it’s important to understand what exactly an offboarding process entails. It includes all the processes and decisions that must take place when an employee leaves.
This can include:
- Transferring that employee’s responsibilities to another person/s.
- Returning company-owned equipment
- Deactivating access rights, accounts, and passwords.
- Holding exit interviews to gather their feedback.
Essentially, the offboarding process is designed to ensure that there are no loose ends when an employee leaves the company. The last thing you want is to be emailing a former employee asking for their laptop to be returned, or realising that someone outside the organisation has had access to sensitive internal documents after their employment. Having a formal process in place will help to ensure this transition is smooth and allows you to gather information to further improve the employee experience for existing and future team members.
How are onboarding and offboarding related?
You can think of Onboarding and Offboarding as the bookends that mark the start and end of an employee’s tenure at your organisation.
The onboarding process involves setting an employee up with systems and equipment, introducing them to the team and organisational culture, and getting them up to speed.
On the other hand, offboarding involves revoking systems access and returning equipment, evaluating their experience at your organisation, and ensuring an effective transfer of their responsibilities and knowledge.
Both are vital parts of the employee experience. Basically, the more effort you put into designing these processes, the more rewards you will reap.
Why is employee offboarding important?
After a team member has left your organisation, they can either be an advocate or a critic of your workplace. Ensuring that things end on a positive note can help push them towards the former, which can lead to a better employer brand, referrals, and the opportunity to lure them back one day. Offboarding is also important for organisational security, serving to ensure that any confidential information, data, and processes are secure.
A good offboarding process will minimise the disruption caused by an employee leaving, ensuring that all of their knowledge and responsibilities are transferred to a successor. It can also contribute to positive company culture by demonstrating the organisation’s care and providing the opportunity to improve upon this when receiving feedback in the exit interview.
Employee Offboarding Checklist
Final Thoughts
While most organisations have an onboarding process, many don’t realise that having an effective offboarding process can be just as important. Doing so helps improve your employer brand and ensures a smooth transfer of responsibilities, as well as protecting your organisation’s security, assets, and information.
We hope you found this article and our offboarding checklist helpful. If you need a hand hiring a replacement employee, or simply looking to grow, take a look at our free recruitment marketplace.
