How To Outboard Offboard Employees

How To Outboard (Offboard) Employees

How to successful offboard employees to make the transition easier.

Outboarding, or offboarding is a crucial part of all businesses. Whether an employee leaves through retirement, resignation or termination, there are steps involved that helps the company retain its reputation. It can be tough to get right, especially for new businesses.

Recently, there has been a record number of layoff rates. In just the last year, 21% of Millennials switched jobs. There is a requirement for a process to make the transition easier and more efficient.

But what is offboarding? Why is it important? How can you efficiently outboard employees?

This guide will answer those questions, as well as walk you through all the steps along the way. Let’s take a look.

What Is Offboarding?

Offboarding, also known as outboarding is the process of the formal separation between an employee and a company. This can be through several methods such as termination, retirement or resignation.

When an employee leaves, the decisions and processes that take place include:

  •  Returning equipment
  •  Conducting exit interviews to gain feedback
  •  Removing access to company material

Offboarding ensures that when a member of staff leaves, there is nothing left behind. For example, there will be no need to email the former employee to bring back their ID badge. This process is an efficient way to monitor how you can improve for current and future employees.

Why Is Offboarding Employees Important?

Whenever an employee leaves, there are two things that can happen. They can either be an antagonist or an advocate for your company. One can damage the reputation of your brand, the other can help to attract more people towards it.

This is where offboarding comes in, helping to ensure the best outcome occurs when staff leave.

Having an effective process in place will help to reduce the risk of misunderstandings when employees move on. Taking the time to get a better understanding of their past experience can help you to develop and grow as a company.

What Is the Difference Between Onboarding and Offboarding?

Onboarding and offboarding take place at the opposite ends of the employee journey at a company. When you join a company, you will be using the onboarding process, when leaving, it will be the offboarding process.

Even though onboarding and offboarding are two different parts of the employee’s route, there are some similarities. Both use a step-by-step process and paperwork should be carefully organised throughout. If rushed, the first day will feel overwhelming and the last day will feel abrupt.

What Are The Steps To Offboarding?

Both onboarding and offboarding have seen significant rises in the past few years, as well as becoming a lot more complicated. Many businesses have had to move to virtual work due to the current world climate. This makes clear communication a lot harder to achieve.

With mixed signals and difficulties communicating, it is important to ensure a clear offboarding process to protect the reputation of the company. Here are some of the steps involved.

CommunicationFirstly, communication is key. This starts with you and the employee, as well as involving the necessary parties such as managers, payroll, and IT.

To secure a smooth transition, this step is important. For those working virtually, use a video call rather than email to help with communication. Emails can get messy.
Removing accessNext, you’ll want to ensure that the past employee has their systems access revoked. Speak with your IT department to remove their access.
 
Also, any company property should be returned. Mobiles, laptops and tablets should be given back. In the United States, each year billions of dollars are lost through items unreturned.
Exit interviewsThe last step is the exit interview. This is a great tool for learning what needs improving at your company. It is a chance to gain an insight into what employees believe should be fixed.   By doing this and using clear communication, the employee is more likely to leave as an advocate for your company. Record all feedback to use, later on, targeting areas of weakness.

How Do You Do Offboarding?

So, we’ve talked about why it is important. We know the steps that are involved. Now, let’s take a look at how to offboard employees efficiently. There are a few stages to go through. Follow this guide and the process will be made easier for you.

Resignation

If the employee is resigning, you’ll want this in writing. Sometimes, announcements will be made verbally, without any notice or forewarning. However, you’ll want to ensure it is in writing, just to keep documentation of the event.

Exit Dates

Once you have the resignation in writing, your HR team should be notified to begin preparations for the new changes. Giving them plenty of notice will create a smoother transition.

Last payroll scheduling

HR will deal with this process, but changes will be needed to be made to the payroll system. It should be double checked so that there are no mistakes with the final pay check, reducing the risk of grievances to your company.

Prioritising shifts

When someone leaves, there will be a clear gap in production. This is where you will need to assess what is high-priority, then reshuffle your team to cover the gap in performance. Don’t just throw all duties and tasks to someone else, leaving them stressed and overwhelmed.

It is a team effort to work together for this short period while things are being ironed out. As soon as possible, make the transition back to the normal schedule. A tip is to leave enough notice on the resignation so you can recruit a replacement sooner.

If you need some extra time, ask the employee if they can be hired as a contractor until the workload is completed. Also, only if you’re highly confident should you promote someone into the open role. Just because the position is free, doesn’t mean you should jump to action.

Letting other employees know

The standard procedure when someone leaves is to alert key members of staff that need to know. These will be people that are impacted by the transition. Then, a week before, you should let their team know the news.

Next, let the rest of the workforce know. This should be customised to the person involved, ensuring you check they are comfortable with how you announce the news. They may prefer to keep it private, so you should always respect their wishes.

Exit interview

As mentioned earlier, the exit interview is a critical part of the entire offboarding process. The reason for holding these interviews is to assess their reason for leaving the firm, seeing if there are ways to improve your brand.

Questions you can ask include:

  •  Did we provide enough support for you to grow and develop?
  •  What could we do to improve to keep employees happy?
  •  What did we do well that you think we should focus on more?

With recruitment being such a crucial part of any business, turnovers can be seen as failures. By gaining a better understanding, you can make serious improvements and reduce people leaving in the future. Allow a few days before arranging the interview to accept the resignation and have a clearer mindset.

Access restriction

Finally, you want to reduce the risk of a security breach layer down the line. Email accounts must be shut down, with any emails forwarded to their personal or new email address. In addition, all company equipment must be returned.

What If Employees Aren’t Leaving Voluntarily?

If the employee is fired or let go for performance reasons, the core steps to offboarding will remain the same. But what happens for different reasons of staff leaving? There are a few key points to acknowledge.

Timings reducedIf an employee is fired under egregious circumstances, you may find the whole process of offboarding done in a day. This isn’t a regular occurrence, however, it can all happen quickly.
Announcements condensedWhen it comes down to performance issues, you shouldn’t share these details. Another important thing to note is not to make an announcement before the employee leaves. There should be a chance given to meet the responsibilities of their role and stay on.
 
If this doesn’t happen, then the announcement should simply state the employee is moving on and you wish them the best of luck.
Documentation importanceFor employees that resign, you only need a document that states the resignation and exit date. However, for those who aren’t leaving voluntarily, documentation should be done much more carefully.

This should include all meetings, calls and follow-ups documented. Then, a summary of those meetings should be done. Document everything.
 
There could be a lawsuit further down the line, meaning you will be much more prepared and in a better position. All processes should be run by the HR department, as well as your legal counsel ensuring you meet all the requirements.