Four Tips for a Successful Off-boarding Process

While a lot has been written about the importance of proper employee on-boarding procedures, unfortunately, in many HR departments, employee off-boarding is often considered less important in terms of priorities. Employee off-boarding is as critical as employee on-boarding, and when handled properly it can prevent legal liabilities and negative publicity, helps protect against information theft and provides you with useful constructive feedback. ZenHR provides you with some tips on how to plan your off-boarding process in a smart way.

• Communicate the off-boarding process clearly

Having clear off-boarding policies and procedures is a must if you want to create a successful HR process. Whether the employee is leaving voluntarily or involuntarily, it’s important that the reason for his/ her departure is communicated clearly and to the entire team, so it doesn’t come across as a surprise to anyone.  First of all, make sure that you have a formal resignation letter, inform the HR and IT teams about the termination in advance as they need time to work on the termination procedures. Finally, if the departing employee has a direct contact with clients, decide when and how to inform them.

• Turn the off-boarding process into a positive experience

Whether the employment termination was your decision or the employee’s decision, it’s always important to try to keep the off-boarding process a positive experience for the employee and to make sure that he/she is treated with respect all the time throughout their off-boarding process.

Burning your bridges with departing employees will only negatively affect your company’s reputation because you never know how they would portray their negative experiences to outsiders. You can actually go the extra mile by organizing a small farewell party for each exiting employee to thank them for their contributions and to talk about their efforts.

• Gain constructive feedback before the employee leaves

Departing employees are always willing to provide you with honest feedback about your company. Conduct an exit interview to get constructive feedback on your work culture, current leaders and managers, areas that need improvement and any other aspects that might push some of your current employees to leave.

• Make sure that you recover company assets and revoke their access to work-related systems

Assign a responsible person to retrieve company assets and equipment from exiting employees such as laptops, cell phones, credit cards, keys, uniforms, etc. Another crucial aspect of off-boarding is to ensure that any confidential information is secure by revoking the access of the departing employee on his company accounts. Make sure that you also delete their email, redirect their phone calls and emails to another employee, and update the passwords of any shared accounts with an exiting employee.