Offboarding documentation for an exiting employees is a cross-functional process. Or, if your team is remote, set up a time to meet virtually as a team and say goodbye., The Trainual marketing team is still 100% remote. Decide on a notice period and termination date, Recover laptop, ID cards and, other company assets, Provide your employee with their offboarding checklist, Remove employee from any recurring meetings, Notify payroll to process all outstanding payments, Debrief employees on outstanding benefits such as COBRA, retirement plans, etc, Confirm contact information for further communication, Encourage them to join your alumni network, Get them a gift, throw them a party, say your thank yous, Remove employees access workplace software/IT systems, Redirect incoming emails and calls to another teammate, Dear Team, Exiting employees might have spent years with you. From the Magazine (March-April 2021) Tom Hegen. But if the purpose is met within the organization, she might reconsider her decision. Thank you! And people interested in your company will ask., While offboarding is all about your departing employee, it's equally (if not more important) for your remaining ones. An exit interview presents an opportunity for you to gather insights and data on what your company is doing well and what your company could improve on. Often, this step only applies to forward-facing roles (like Sales positions). Dont stop at your employees last day. This procedure will be followed to process all terminations at Brown. This process involves any number of steps to guarantee an amicable separation, a transfer of knowledge and the securing of company property and data. Following the checklist will ensure that you have all your bases covered. This also may protect your company from dissatisfied employees threatening legal action or retaliating, but it can also help your company by allowing that former employee to speak highly of you and your company. Were you given clear goals and objectives? Build a nurture program where you can send out communications to your ex-employees on whats happening in the organization - events, updates, upcoming roles (in case they want to come back). Here are just two of many possible examples: Related: How to Create an Engaging Orientation & Onboarding Program for New Employees. Did your job here match your expectations when you joined? Admit when management has made mistakes and demonstrate steps to fix them. This includes - but is not limited to - their company email, access to your project management tool, and their Trainual account. For example, set up a time as soon as possible for people ops to officially document the verbal resignation. If this is the case, make sure every offboarding employee:. Decide who is going to fill vacancies, keep track of company assets and implement feedback from exit interviews with clever, engaging visuals like employee offboarding checklists, handbooks and agreements. This time period can also allow you an opportunity to change a valuable employees mind and retain them in the organization. Their manager can then delegate based on these recommendations and bandwidth. This can be a voluntary process (resignation, retirement) or an involuntary process (termination). At 18 he ran away and saw the world with a backpack and a credit card, discovering that the true value of any point or mile is the experience it facilitates. 6 steps to create an offboarding checklist template. In other words, it initiates the formal separation between the employer and the employee. They should take time to explain the exit updates. Offboarding describes the process of managing employee turnover. Something went wrong while submitting the form. Task Owners: Direct Reporting Manager, Current Employee, New Employee. When you offer more options to employees right at the time that they express exit intent, you stand a chance of dissuading them from leaving your organization by showing them ways to achieve their goals by continuing employment with you. Either way, rehiring prior employees saves time and money (compared to training someone from scratch). Offboarding process is a series of steps that streamline the formal separation of an employee from a company while taking care of various dimensions such as expertise sharing, exit interviews, asset recovery, and finishing up the necessary forms and formalities. We discussed a few broad themes that are a part of the offborading process. No credit card required. By asking the right questions through a questionnaire, you can bridge the gap between your perception of what employees feel about your organization and what they say next to the watercooler. Is offboarding the same as employee separation? You will mine gold from them. What was your relationship like with your manager? Thank you. Additionally, they must offer tools to generate letters of resignation, benefits documents, post-exit communication chains to all its departments. The specifics will vary greatly depending on the job, but a few key elements you should think about include: If the employees departure is amicable, asking them to create a document or a video with the above information as well as any tips they might offer to their successor can save you a boatload of time and money. A veteran of newsrooms and agencies, Jennifer Gaskin is a writer, editor and designer who is the only living person not to have strong feelings on the Oxford comma. Or your employees again. Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Advisor. All Rights Reserved. In addition to having employees give back their keys or keycards, you should also revoke any systems access or parking passes that might be in effect, and your specific needs may vary when it comes to physical access. Software Suggest's Best Software Companies, Best Overall ATS 2022 as per Forbes Advisor. The human resources (HR) department completes the process to guide the employee through the transition, and there may be different processes depending on the circumstances of the departure. As a part of the knowledge transfer process, you could also ask your new hires or other teammates to closely work with them and observe them in action. It's important to note that the circumstances surrounding an employee's departure will dictate which . With Freshteam, you can create a list of offboarding tasks for them and also follow them up with gentle periodic reminders. It starts from the moment an employee hands in their resignation and ends the day they leave the company, but the effects of it extend long after the employee leaves. You can start customizing all these templates by registering for a free Venngage account. That way, they have a clear understanding of what's expected of them from Day 1. Additionally, make sure to take all feedback seriously. . Employee offboarding helps companies stay ahead in a competitive environment and raise their reputation. Summary. How? We said goodbye to Kendall Davis - our Community Manager. by. Pay the remaining employees more for additional responsibility, and make and share a plan to handle any necessary additional workloadrecognizing a lack of sustainability in a temporary situation is important to the continued success of an operation. What qualities do you think we should look for in the replacement? If you already have existing documents, processes, or offboarding guides, be sure to include those here. without them you wouldnt be able to use Venngage. The University's Offboarding procedure outlines required actions for employees and supervisors to perform when employment is terminated from Brown. Work with the departing employee to ensure a successful knowledge transfer and make sure any and all loose ends are tied up before the employee leaves to minimize the impact to productivity caused by the departure. But if youre offboarding employees because of involuntary termination, you should pivot your process accordingly. The immediate team members can be communicated through an email, a mention in the meetings, or through any other means that fits your company policy. Freshteam allows you to set up resignation approval workflows. While we always hope we can keep the best employees for the long run, at some point, your business will likely have to conduct offboarding. If her manager finds it fit, the employee can be given more options that will give the impetus to continue working for you. Additionally, make sure to revoke all of your employees access to your companys online or off-line systems as well as any alarm or gate codes. Strengthening connections between employer and employees should be a continuous process, not just an entry on the onboarding checklist. Any delay can impact the final settlement date. This way, both the employees can have some overlap - The new employee has wiggle room to get comfortable with the new responsibilities before the current employee leaves. Manage the logistical challenges of transitioning the work/team. Offboarding is a practical and experiential process to both the employee and employer. Onboarding refers to the process involved in hiring and training a new employee, while offboarding is about successfully parting ways with an employee and filling their vacancy. (It was a big hit! Here is a detailed account of the offboarding tasks that will make your checklist more comprehensive. Though it may be uncomfortable to communicate with the rest of your company about an employees departure, the sooner you tell the office the better. and. To keep everything in line, we ask our people ops team to officially sign-off before circulating the update. If you opt out of these cookies, we cant get feedback to make Venngage better for you and all our users. Meaning, taking care of: Are you sure you want to rest your choices? An exit interview is just one part of the offboarding process, but its a critical one. Employee onboarding begins when a candidate accepts your offer, and while formal new-employee training tasks may be completed in a few days or a week, onboarding only arguably ends when the new hire is contributing at full speedwhich could be months or even a year after their hire date. Plus, it makes sure the company and the individual are aligned and saying the same thing. Prevent legal issues (such as contract disputes, compensation, or wrongful termination). Disable all internal user accounts to which the employee . We were greatly privileged to have had you with us for almost a decade and wish you the best in your next endeavour. Often, disabling the email account takes care of a lot of those items, but planning the date of disablement is essential. In this case, have the person taking over the relationship or a company leader reach out instead., But still provide the same information (exit update, new contact, and next steps included). So encourage your managers or team supervisors to let their team know. I. Here are our top eight steps to creating a tactful, effective offboarding process: Treat your departing employees with fairness and kindness regardless of how they leave. Offboarding is the process companies go through when an employee leaves it. An exit interview is a chance to have an open conversation with your outgoing employees on why they are truly leaving, what you could have done better and their experience with your people, culture and company as a whole. That way, Trainual broke the news and set the tone - so there was no confusion. Or they could be moving on (like in Kendalls case) to pursue another career opportunity that better aligns with their personal goals., But no matter the reason, it's up to you to make sure they know the company supports them and their decision. It indeed is, but there a solution -use Frestheam to streamline it. And to start educating them on how you can work together to make this transition happen smoothly.. Or two, they are involuntarily terminated.. We are saddened to announce that our Chief product officer Paula will be leaving and will be pursuing her passion through a different venture. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The process can be voluntary or involuntary. That way, you can make your workplace better (AKA increase retention and offboard less often). You never know. While your companys checklist probably doesnt have to be so extensive, make sure the list includes some key steps such as completing and filing all paperwork, creating a plan for the transfer of knowledge, organizing the return of any company equipment, conducting an exit interview, contacting any clients, removing and revoking access to digital accounts and stopping automatic paychecks. Unless its documented, its going to simply be lost once they leave. Whether you hire an immediate successor to replace the departing employee or you restructure existing positions to cover the employees workload, you want to keep the leaving employees knowledge within your company. We created this guide to offboarding best practices, so you can let your employees go as gracefully and tactfully as possibleregardless of the circumstances of departure. Start building your offboarding process with our free template. We use cookies to offer you a better browsing experience, analyse site traffic, personalize content, and serve targeted advertisements. No strings attached. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive compensation from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Advisor site. Employee separation triggers an offboarding process, but its not fair to say that offboarding and employee separation are the same. Beyond the formal side of the offboarding process, its important to cater to the human side of it. What does it mean to offboard an employee? Oops! Typically, though, the notice period is a time for the departing employee to hand off any important files or get their projects in a state to move to another person (often known as the knowledge transfer process). Its unsafe and difficult to retrieve. Do let us know if there is anything else we could do to ease this transition What is it, how to build an effective training program, and more included. What is involved in the employee offboarding process? And exchange personal contact information (like cell phone numbers or social media) if your team hasn't already. If, through an exit questionnaire, you discover that many employees raise a common concern, you must address it promptly to avoid more talent from exiting your organization. But we realized that we didn't necessarily want to rehire her exact position.. The longer you wait, the more likely your other employees will fill in the details themselves. This way, you can have a clear view of the tasks that have been accomplished and those that are pending. Separating employees should actively participate in the offboarding process, including but not limited to taking the following steps: 1.