Sooner or later, you will have to deal with employee departures in your company. Whether they are dismissals, retirements or voluntary departures, it’s always essential to implement the right practices to manage the situation and end your professional relationship on a positive note.
Without further ado, here are our tips for effective employee departure management, with a bonus offboarding checklist you can use whenever you want!
First and foremost, a successful offboarding process helps preserve your company culture and employer brand by leaving a good impression on the outgoing worker. After all, employees talk to each other and regularly check company and employer review sites. For this reason – and many others – it is essential to maintain good management practices right up to the last day of the employee experience.
A well-executed offboarding process also helps establish a transfer of knowledge between the employee and their replacement, thus avoiding the loss of skills that could be crucial to the smooth running of the company. In this way, continuity of work is guaranteed, and you don’t risk losing productivity during this transition period.
Effective departure management is just as important in removing security risks. The numbers don’t lie: 71% of companies do not have an employee offboarding process in place despite the fact that 20% of them have suffered security breaches linked to former employees.
Whatever the type of departure, it should be planned and anticipated when possible. It is also important to establish transparent communication with the employee concerned and their current team.
When dealing with dismissals, it’s best to give the employee advance notice and to send a termination letter once the decision has been made. In the case of resignation or retirement, you should send emails to inform the employee and their current team of what’s to come.
The key is to be open and treat your employee with respect. Don’t forget to protect their privacy and to reassure their colleagues. Even if the situation is tense or complex, it’s crucial to be professional and empathetic throughout the entire offboarding process.
Managing employee departures involves numerous administrative tasks and multiple emails to send the right documents at the right time. It’s not always easy to remember all the key steps you need to take to ensure a positive experience.
That’s where offboarding checklists come in handy: they detail the series of steps you need to follow. This type of tools ensure that the exit process is effective on an administrative, technical and human level. They cover all your bases in terms of return of company property, access rights reset and legal risks.
Here are a few essential points to include in your checklist:
Need a free and effective employee offboarding checklist template? Click here 👇
Ensure positive offboarding experiences and regulatory compliance!
DOWNLOAD YOUR OFFBOARDING CHECKLIST
The company’s legal obligations differ depending on the context of the departure (voluntary, end of contract at the end of the probationary period, etc.). Refer to your employee contracts and check the notice periods and non-disclosure agreements detailed therein.
In addition, you need to create and communicate all the specific departure documents that are relevant to the situation (employment certificate, for example) as quickly as possible to ensure an effective employee offboarding process.
Whenever possible, you should plan a transition period during which the departing employee can transfer their experience and tasks to another worker, be they a successor, a new hire or a colleague.
This process minimizes the impact of the departure on the team and on organizational productivity. Remember to take the time to ensure a seamless transition of key tasks and responsibilities to maintain a good workflow during and after the employee exit.
The aim of knowledge transfer is to avoid the loss of skills within the company and to ensure the continuity of workflows and operations.
For effective knowledge transfer, encourage your employees to document their work processes and ongoing projects. Don’t hesitate to organize training and knowledge transfer sessions to ensure that you don’t lose information and skills that are invaluable to your team and your organizational success.
These initiatives are even more crucial when someone leaves the organization. After all, it is literally a now or never type of situation if you want to preserve skills and experience that are essential to your company strategy.
Exit interviews are an ideal opportunity to gather valuable insights from departing employees and understand the key reasons behind their departure. These meetings enable you to identify opportunities for improving your talent management by collecting constructive and honest feedback. Who better than your former employees to guide your future talent management and retention strategies?
Organize your exit interviews in advance and encourage employees to accept your invitation: their participation is a valuable asset for improving future employee retention.
Psst… Need an exit interview template? Download it for free here!
When appropriate, a farewell gathering can be a great way to end a professional relationship on a high note. Try to make it personal by considering individual hobbies and preferences, and invite close coworkers or relevant teams to join the event. This will be the perfect opportunity to write a card expressing gratitude and to offer a group gift. These parties are part of your overall organizational culture and ensure an amicable separation.
The end of your employment relationships does not have to be the end of your contact with the worker. Quite the contrary: it’s always a good idea to foster a positive relationship with your former colleagues, as they can become ambassadors of your company to the public, or even indirect recruiters by convincing candidates to join your staff.
You can set up discussion groups with former employees or create alumni networks. This type of initiative can be beneficial for potential referrals or future collaborations. Who knows, you might even benefit from boomerang job applicants – which refers to former workers coming back to your organization after leaving.
Even after the employee has left, your work isn’t quite finished yet. It’s important to check that everything is in place, to avoid last-minute oversights and potential frustration among your employees.
Make a final check on revocation of access to company data, and take the time to ensure that the team or the successor to the departing employee is comfortable with taking over tasks and responsibilities. Don’t hesitate to organize team or individual meetings to discuss everyone’s feelings and concerns, and refer to your offboarding checklist to confirm that all steps have been followed.
Offboarding is an integral part of the employee lifecycle and experience. Positive offboarding experiences can become company assets rather if you play your cards right. Indeed, you should see employee departures as opportunities to learn and improve your process to optimize management practices and retention rates. Need help automating your administrative departure management? Discover Folks’ offboarding management features and save precious time every day!
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