LeaverA few months ago we posted about the importance of a great onboarding process to get new employees off on the right foot.

As much as new starters are part of company life, leavers are an inevitable feature too. It’s estimated that UK employees will work for six different companies on average during their careers. So offboarding is something that small- and medium-sized businesses will experience many times over.

Some experts argue that how you offboard people is equally as important as how you onboard them. Read on to find out how to create a good offboarding experience for staff that will benefit your business in the long run.

A new approach to offboarding

HR consultant Sharlyn Lauby delves deeper into what a solid offboarding process looks like in her blog, HR Bartender. Sharlyn starts by calling for a change to how we view offboarding:

“I’ve worked with some managers who felt offboarding was a waste of time. Once an employee gave notice well, that was it. The soon-to-be former employee was a traitor and their last day couldn’t come soon enough (sound familiar?). But former employees play a valuable role for your organization. A very valuable role.”

There are three reasons offboarding is important, according to Sharlyn. Somewhat surprisingly, they are all linked to recruitment.

Three reasons offboarding is important

Good offboarding creates brand ambassadors
Past employees know your company very well. They can continue to sing your business’s praises after they’ve left (most likely moving to a business in the same sector and location). Or, they could tell people it’s not a great place to work. Which would you prefer? The way employees are treated when they decide to leave will affect how they talk about the company.

Getting great (free) referrals
Former employees know your organisational strengths. They have the ability to help you using their new connections, whether it’s by customer referrals or candidate referrals. So foster the connection you have with them, right up to the last day at work, and even beyond, and that connection will continue to pay dividends into the future.

Don’t forget returners
Former employees sometimes decide they want to come back and work for you. Perhaps they find that the grass isn’t greener at the new job. They may have left to gain new experiences or climb a few rungs of the career ladder quickly elsewhere. Leaving the door open for great employees to return can be very good for your business.

What good offboarding looks like

Good organisations usually pay a lot of attention to getting onboarding right, with a well-defined process and strategy. The same should be true of offboarding. 

Here’s what good offboarding looks like, according to Forbes Magazine:

  • Offboarding allows a company to gracefully separate from a former employee.
  • The process should help your company grow and improve.
  • An offboarding strategy eases the transition from one employee to the next.
  • Offboarding can also protect your company from lawsuits, wrongful pay continuation or other problems that can arise after an employee’s departure.
  • Offboarding will prepare your company with information about what you are looking for when hiring new employees or redesigning your company’s structure.

Offboarding checklist

Forbes Magazine has a useful checklist that businesses can use for offboarding. Here is a quick summary:

  1. Treat Leavers with Fairness and Kindness

Thank them for the time and energy they’ve invested in your company. A positive separation means you’ll most likely keep them as a brand ambassador in the future.

  1. Find Out Why They’re Leaving

While a retiring employee may have a straightforward offboarding process, you can gain important insights from an employee resigning to work elsewhere.

  1. Communicate About the Departure

If you wait to communicate with the rest of the company about an employee’s departure, people may fill in the details themselves. This can mean a voluntary departure is viewed as a firing. So don’t delay, even if it feels a bit uncomfortable to announce someone’s leaving.

  1. Secure Equipment and Update Access

This is one of the more straightforward parts of the offboarding process, one that remains the same whatever the manner of the employee’s departure. It involves securing company assets, revoking employees’ system access and ensuring compliance with any other company protocols. If they use employee benefits it may be courteous to warn them in advance if any come to an end with their employment.

  1. Hold an Exit Interview

In much the same way you interview a candidate to see what they can bring to your company, you should interview departing employees to find out how their experience at the company has been. Here is a useful template for Exit Interviews from Culture Amp including some recommended exit interview questions.

  1. Ensure a Knowledge Transfer

If the employee’s departure is amicable, ask them to create a document or a video with information about their role, duties, systems they use and stakeholders or clients they deal with. Any tips they can offer to their successor will save you time and money.

  1. Protect Your Company From Loss of Productivity

Work with the departing employee to ensure all loose ends are tied up before they leave, to minimise the impact on productivity.

  1. Stay in Touch

This can be as simple as reaching out via phone or email, meeting up for coffee or even inviting the employee to company events, depending on the relationship.

Summary: Offboarding

While good onboarding is recognised as a valuable process for new employees and productivity, offboarding can often be an afterthought – if that. Yet cultivating good relations with employees who are moving on makes so much sense. It’s not only the kind and thoughtful thing to do, but it also means they’ll continue to feel connected to your company. 

They can recommend you to new clients and contractors, and they may even return, bringing their experience and new skills with them.

It’s important to have a strategy and process for offboarding, and this can often be tied to the same systems that you use for your onboarding processes.

While losing staff is just a part of life, remember that Employee Benefits can help with staff retention, as well as staff attraction during the recruitment process. We can help with all your staff rewards needs – browse our full list of benefits here.

About Us

At Enjoy Benefits, we have great experience in helping companies of all sizes introduce benefits that are suitable for their workplace.

Benefits are easy to set up and ongoing administration is then run through a hub, allowing employees to manage their own benefits while the employer can see which benefits are proving popular and what level of take-up each has had.

If you would like an obligation-free chat to discuss which benefits might work for your business and your employees, please contact us by calling 0800 088 7315 or using our Contact Form.