Offboarding is the period preceding a team member's departure, whether desired or not. Taking care of your employees from arrival to departure will bring many benefits to your company regarding reputation, network, and performance.
Nowadays, it is scarce for a team member to build his career in the same company. Do not be destabilized if the talents come and go pretty recurrently. Even if he leaves your company, a team member will remain in the same sector of activity. Therefore, it is in your best interest that he speak well of you to his professional network. The world of work is small, and you will surely come across it again or work with the same service providers. The image of your company and the quality of your employer brand are therefore at stake.
Properly organizing your team member's departure will promote the phenomenon of "boomerang rehire" or the fact of reintegrating a company in which you have already worked. Reintegrating previous talents into your company will be low-cost recruitment since they already know all the processes and do not need to be trained. If your team member decides to leave his job on his initiative, he will nevertheless know that he can return without fear.
Administrative procedures
Just like onboarding, offboarding must be prepared! Therefore, you will have to set up a real process that will be used for all departures of your employees.
Each of your employees impacts your business. Recognizing their performance and skills by giving them feedback will positively affect them. Your collaborator will feel valued and know his work and investment have been noticed. Feedback from your future ex-employee also allows you to gather their opinions and get feedback. This way, you can improve some internal processes that need to be improved. These tips are, therefore, valuable for your HR management strategy.
If you have succeeded in recruiting the future replacement before the departure of your collaborator, this will only have advantages. The team member who leaves his job will thus be able to provide proper training on his career and give him advice. The integration of the future team member will go much better since he will be accompanied when taking up his post. This transition phase will facilitate his integration with the team and his manager.
If the recruitment cannot be done before his departure, ask your team member to prepare a guide to facilitate integration. This manual may list the good practices inherent to the position and those more general, internal to the company. Also, ask that all the equipment he needs be available to him. As HRD or business manager, you don't know all the specificities of your employees' positions. The only person to pass on the correct information is none other than the offboarding. Hence the importance of a well-prepared departure to facilitate future arrivals.
Transparent communication between each team is paramount. The rest should formally learn about the departure of a team member of the employees. You can also organize a snack, a breakfast, or an aperitif to mark the event. This will be an opportunity to thank the team member who is leaving. Even when they go, taking care of your employees sends a positive message to all your teams. This can only motivate them and increase their performance.
Do not hesitate to keep in touch with your employees. Today, social networks such as LinkedIn make it possible to follow the professional life of a former team member. Maintaining a good relationship will have beneficial impacts on your employer brand.
When employees decide to leave their job, certain documents must be given. This is the case for any account balance, the reimbursement of expense reports, or even the work certificate. If you have lent him equipment such as a computer or a telephone, ensure he returns them before he leaves.
Also, make sure to close all access, physical or not: change passwords, deactivate your badge, etc. This will prevent you from leaking confidential information or risking cyber hacking.
Once the offboarding process is completed, access to company emails and other systems must be revoked. This is essential to ensure former employees can no longer access sensitive information. Just one look at a company's sensitive information from the wrong person (perhaps a disgruntled team member) will show that the risk of data theft can never be taken lightly for your organization and customers alike.
Leveraging an IT company like Lenet can make for a smoother team member offboarding process that takes the burden of hours of operational IT to work off your HR or people department. Automation of the team member offboarding process streamlines the process and eliminates redundancies.
As an employer or manager, you can write a letter of recommendation to the offboarded person or write references on LinkedIn. If you are delighted with his skills, please let people know.
Offboarding for temporary employees is all the more critical. If you often use temporary work, the temporary workers who carry out a mission in your company must have a good experience. Thus, they will communicate positive opinions to other temp workers and temp agencies.
You may also have to use the same temp again. Therefore, good management of his offboarding is essential to encourage him to return for future missions. Especially if the skills required are rare and if his profile is scarce.
Like employee onboarding, offboarding is a critical transition phase. It facilitates employees' exit during a contract breach and the integration of future candidate(s). Therefore, a real strategy must be thought out, and administrative and professional procedures must be carried out: feedback, information transparency, starting drink, or delivery of documents and equipment. Your collaborators' magical experience will have to be made to the end and beyond. Do not hesitate to write him a letter of recommendation—the final objective is to promote your employer brand.