The definition of offboarding
As HR professionals, we’re all seasoned in the implications and considerations around employee onboarding – the critical program that sets the tone for your employees’ relationship with your company. And today, in our ever-evolving virtual world, the demand for onboarding remotely has increased significantly. But what about offboarding? Typically, this manual process has been a more tradition part of the onboarding process. Now it can be done remotely too.
All employee journeys have a beginning, middle and end. Some employees stay for days, some for months and many for years but all employees complete this journey:
- Beginning: Onboarding
- Middle: Reboarding (changing roles/departments within the organization)
- End: Offboarding
While onboarding is vital, offboarding is just as important to preserving and bolstering your company’s reputation, managing your employees’ experience and fostering the return of boomerang employees. Well-structured offboarding program can be the difference between waking up to a Twitter rant from a disgruntled terminated employee slamming your company and welcoming back a former employee when they want to return.
At Click Boarding, we’ve evolved offboarding to a new level. Our approach goes beyond traditional offboarding by simplifying the multi-step process with streamlined digitization. Rather than the tedious and manual aspects, most HR teams experience have been replaced with time-saving automated workflows, proper paperwork, helpful reminders and more.
Let’s take a deeper dive to explore common offboarding missteps and best practices:
What is it?
Offboarding is the next-generation management of employee exits in a thoughtful, thorough, and consistent way. It includes all the processes and procedures involved in employee exits due to voluntary resignation, layoffs or termination.
Why does it matter?
Employees leave companies for many reasons and the offboarding experience is often inconsistent, lacking empathy or simply unpleasant. Poor offboarding is kind of like telling your employees, even the great ones you hope to return someday, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”
Mismanaged offboarding opens the company up to negative word of mouth, legal risks, and a host of unnecessary business risks.
What are common missteps?
- Inconsistent processes: Many companies leave offboarding as an afterthought and let each manager handle the process without oversight.
- Inconsistent communication: Offboarded employees want to understand what to expect. The wrong tone, incorrect information being disseminated and limited information are some of the most common missteps in this process.
- Remote employees: The extra hurdles of letting emote employees go aren’t usually managed. This can include communication, access shutoff, equipment return, expectation management and employee feelings.
- Security loopholes: Inconsistent offboarding can lead to security loopholes, both physical and digital, leaving your company vulnerable (especially to angry or upset employees).
What are the most common best practices?
- Consistent processes: A consistent process for on-site and remote contributors ensures that each transitioning employee experiences a well-thought-out process with automated triggers for tasks such as asset retrieval and services shut off.
- Consistent communication: Employee exits can be stressful, especially during times of mass layoffs. Consistent communication helps exiting employees understand what to expect, when, and how. It also ensures each employee receives the same messaging and information to minimize uncertainty.
- Appropriate tone: The importance of how you make employees feel during their exit can’t be emphasized enough. Respect, empathy and the right tone are paramount.
- Company values: Offboarding is the lasting impression you will leave with these employees. Infusing it with your company values helps you positively color the experience.
- Exit interviews: Learn from your exiting employees about how you can improve the employee experience.
How can Click Boarding help?
Click Boarding is the industry leader in integrated remote offboarding. Our mobile-first platform integrates directly with your HRIS and enables your organization to provide a compassionate, compliant experience every time.
Our seamless, mobile-first platform can help you:
- Create custom, consistent remote offboarding experiences
- Provide clear communication over email or text, ensuring employees get the right information at the right time
- Build customizable messaging, enabling you to manage the tone and content
- Establish an effective process that includes all relevant teams (IT, security, data management, compliance, HR and more)
To learn more about how remote offboarding can increase boomerang employees and referrals, mitigate risk for your organization and improve your holistic employer brand, the Click employee journey experts are here for you!
