5 Best Practices for Employee Offboarding

Employee offboarding is more than just an exit interview. It should be a smooth process between outgoing employees and the company. The reasons for an offboarding process can be due to several reasons, including termination, resignation, or retirement. Whatever the reason may be, an effective employee offboarding checklist is essential as it helps ensure that each employee’s departure is smooth and a positive experience and that all exiting employee processes are completed before they leave.

Why a Good Employee Offboarding Process Matters

Offboarding ensures that all loose ends are addressed when employees leave. This way, employers know every base is covered, and departing employees can leave without worrying about having to return to give items back or resolve any issues with their final paycheck.

Investing in an offboarding process to smoothly end relationships with employees will not only ensure that your logistics are secure but will also help improve existing employee retention rates and decrease employee turnover.  If your current employees know you care about them from the moment they are hired to their farewell party, they will feel that the company is fully invested in them, fostering loyalty and can decrease employee attrition.

5 Essential Employee Offboarding Practices

1. Exit Interviews 

Asking departing employees for constructive feedback can be incredibly insightful. As they are no longer working for the company, they can be open and honest about their experience during the exit interview. Employers can use exit interviews to gather insight into why an employee is leaving. The HR Department should utilize this information to unveil and address any issues within the company and make improvements in order to boost employee retention. Since exit interviews aren’t too long, it’s a good idea to ask exiting employees to take an employment survey before they leave to supplement their interview answers. 

2. Develop a Transition Plan

Ensuring an efficient transition and knowledge transfer between the departing employee and the relevant manager or team members is critical. This transition is important in order to avoid losing vital information, access to documentation, or access to vendors or customers. You can stay on top of everything by:

• Mapping out and transferring important role knowledge and current projects to another employee or manager.
• Ensure all customers have been transitioned to a new point of contact. 
• Ensure that access to important documents or platforms has been transitioned or is available to team members.
  
  

3. Retrieve Company Assets 

Many companies give their employees assets to do their jobs, such as computers, phones, headsets, and more. Keep a record of every asset given to each employee on file throughout their time working for your company. This list can then be used to retrieve the assets during the offboarding process when an employee is first onboarded and agrees in writing that the employee will take appropriate care of the asset. In the event of loss or damage, the replacement cost may be deductible from their final pay.

4. Celebrate Their Contributions 

It’s essential to try your best to leave things with departing employees on good terms, especially when they’ve been an asset to the company. Make sure to give them a warm and memorable farewell celebrating and recognizing all their contributions to the organization. An offboarding celebration is a time to publicly highlight an employee’s impact on the business and show appreciation for their work.

5. Provide Support

Once an employee is on their way out, do what you can to help support them. Personally guide the employee through the offboarding process and provide them with any resources they may need to assist in their career, such as recommendation letters. Stay in touch with your departing employees. If they leave on good terms, you can even reassure them that your company would be happy to have them back and that they can reach out for any support in the future. Maintaining a positive relationship with these employees is essential, as they can be your brand ambassadors.