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Employees leaving is just a fact of business. That being said, we typically don’t like it when employees leave. We often have positive working relationships with the person, and it can be disruptive to the team / operation. But making sure that employees leave the organization with the same respect as when they entered is important.
While employees leaving is something all organizations deal with, we don’t always have a plan in place for the process. A couple of weeks ago, I published an article on “5 Offboarding Activities for a Respectful and Efficient Employee Departure”. If you haven’t seen it, I hope you’ll check it out. One of the activities was “have a policy”. So today, I want to talk about some things to consider when developing an offboarding policy.
The good news is that we can use some of our onboarding best practices to build an excellent offboarding policy. Here are the five things to consider:
- Determine the goal. Just like creating an objective for onboarding, it’s important to establish the reason for offboarding. The goal isn’t because the employee is leaving. It could be to collect valuables from the employee like keys and/or equipment. Another reason could be to give employees consistent information about COBRA or their 401(k) plan. Finally, a reason could be to plant the thought that the employee is welcome to return (see #5 below).
- Make the most of your technology. A big mistake that organizations make when purchasing technology is that they buy features they don’t use AND they don’t buy features they need. This is a good time to take inventory of your technology capabilities. Discover what your system can and cannot do. Determine if there are existing steps in the offboarding process that can be automated such as an employee exit checklist.
- Incorporate microlearning strategically. Employees leaving the organization have questions. In fact, most of their questions are fairly consistent. HR can engage employees during their final weeks of employment with microlearning videos, podcasts, FAQs, etc. surrounding the most asked questions. This saves time for HR professionals and provides employees with consistent answers. And employees can consume the content when it’s convenient for them.
- Measure and evaluate your results. In step #1, we established the goals for our offboarding program. Here, we want to measure to see if those goals have been met. HR departments might want to consider asking about offboarding during an exit interview to get some sense of whether employees feel they are getting good information during their final weeks. It’s also possible the organization could measure how many employees leave the company and later return.
- Keep the door open. Speaking of employees returning, a big reason to have a formal offboarding process is to let employees know they’re welcome to return in a full-time, part-time, or contractor capacity. Of course, the company and employee need to work through the original reason the employee left. But there are many advantages to rehiring employees. Offboarding could be a place to plant that idea.
There’s no question that employee onboarding is an important activity. Employee offboarding is equally important. Employees will always remember the way they were treated when they were leaving the company. In fact, that last memory could be the one they share with potential applicants, current employees, and future customers. It makes good business sense to allow employees to leave the organization with respect.
Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby while exploring the streets of Havana, Cuba
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