When an employee exits the company, the offboarding process begins. Offboarding refers to the process of disengaging an employee from their position in a company. The formal separation between organization and employee can happen through termination, resignation, or retirement.
Some challenges and tasks arise when it comes to the point of offboarding an employee. However, it is particularly important to remain professional at all times and approach the situation in a structured manner.
With the offboarding checklist for successful offboarding, you’ll ensure an employee’s smooth exit from the company. At the same time, get started with the successor’s recruiting process.
All of the offboarding checklists assume a legally binding contract termination is required and stays out of the question.
Furthermore, there are three different types of business exit that need to be considered and handled differently.
- Termination of the employee: The employee leaves the company at his own request.
- Termination of company side: The employer dissolves the employment relationship due to differences/missteps or gross misconduct.
- Retirement: The employee ends his active business career in the company due to age and retires.
What is the difference between onboarding and offboarding?
Both terms refer to the employee lifecycle in the company. Employee onboarding is the process when the worker starts in an organization and offboarding when he or she leaves the company. They are equally important in guaranteeing motivation in the beginning or leaving on good terms in the end.
The advantages of a structured offboarding
- Proper farewell for employees
- Save time on repetitive tasks and processes
- Clearly assign employees’ responsibilities
- Recover all relevant company tools
- Outstanding employee appreciation
- Timely replacement and handover
- Positive employer branding.
The checklists that structure your offboarding
- Exit interview for feedback
- Prepare work certificate/references
- Transitional solution and replacement
- Deactivating access rights
- Return of work equipment and deletion of personal data
- Retrieve company property, such as ID badges and uniforms
- Official farewell.
Employee offboarding: the exit interview
Every employee’s decision to leave a company has a reason. Question this in a benevolent exit interview and, if possible, make conclusions for better future planning. Pay attention to staying objective at all times and avoid getting emotional.
Knowing the exact reason behind an employee’s decision to quit is essential. An honest conversation with constructive feedback can be helpful to handle conflicts differently in the future and avoid high employee turnover levels for the same reason.
1. Arrange an appointment with relevant contacts
Try to find a meeting with, for example, the team leader and the person in charge of the leaving employee. If a single meeting is not enough, several appointments can be planned, if necessary, in order to clarify all open topics.
2. Question/clarify the reasons for the exit
If the employee resigns, it should be clarified whether this is due to personal life circumstances, such as moving. Other reasons can set the ground for constructive criticism and address these issues effectively in the future. Honest words won’t come out of your current employees’ mouths unless you prepare and ask the right exit interview questions.
On the other hand, an employee’s termination also requires an explanation to the terminated employee and what led your company to make that decision.
3. Smooth out the transition phase until the employee leaves the company
Normally, the time span between the employment termination and company exit takes from 2 weeks to a couple of months. Clarify whether the employee is available to train the successor to ensure a smooth transition. If not, if he or she has a handover prepared for the hire in the absence of an immediate internal replacement. Make sure to have all the knowledge transferred.
4. Discuss possible open claims
An employment contract’s termination also means that overtime, outstanding bonus payments, or accrued benefits such as leave must be paid.
5. Clarify the communication of the business exit
Some employees don’t mind communicating their exit openly to their colleagues. Others would like to keep it private. Whichever the case is, who will communicate their exit should be clarified and how it will be handled. Taking the wishes of the employee into consideration will keep them away from an uncomfortable situation.
Employee offboarding: prepare references
As an employer, you have the option to be listed as a reference in employees' CVs. This way, potential future employers can approach you and ask you some questions about your former employees. So if you want to thank an employee for doing a great job in your company, this is a great way to make up for it. This step is rather a suggestion, is purely optional, and has only partially to do with off-boarding.
1. Offer yourself as a work reference (optional)
Creating a work reference is extremely important for successful offboarding and exiting employees today. References support the employee’s future job search and give potential future employers information about their experience, knowledge, results, and skills, such as teamwork.
Employee offboarding: temporary solution and replacement
During the first step of the offboarding process, you already clarified whether the departing employee would personally train a successor or if only a handover document would be delivered. At the beginning of the recruiting process, you should also not wait too long to fill the new vacancy and find a replacement as quickly as possible.
1. Implementing a transitional solution.
If you have defined a person responsible for the departing employees' tasks in the company, now it’s time to start introducing them to their temporary role. The most important or daily tasks should continue to be done - even when no long-term successor has been found for the job.
2. Recruiting and filling the vacant
If nobody inside the company is able to take over the tasks of the departing employee in the long term, no time should be wasted. The vacant position must be immediately announced on job portals. Ideally, the departing employee should take part in drafting the job description because no one knows the responsibilities and duties of the job better than them. This step of offboarding serves as a bridge for the offboarding and onboarding process.
Employee offboarding: recovery of assets and deletion of personal data
Before employees leave the company, make sure that you get your company inventory back so that it can be passed on to the successor or other employee. Also, logins, email addresses, and access cards should be revoked, reassigned, or passed on.
1. Withdrawal of permissions and access rights to hardware, software, and databases
Ensure that departing employees no longer have access to personnel data, software, or documents.
2. Update access control system
Collect any items that grant physical access to your facilities. Keys to the building or office space, as well as for underground garages or employee IDs, must also be returned to the company.
3. Collection of hardware
Company assets such as calculator, laptop, keyboard, mouse, etc. are to be passed on to the successor or returned upon employment termination. Be sure to check for damage or defects before it’s passed on to the new employee.
4. Managing e-mail address
The email address should ideally be changed so that the person next in line or successor can receive important emails sent to the predecessor.
5. Return company car / business cell phone
If assigned at the beginning of employment, company cars and business cell phones must also be returned. Make sure to have it done before the employee leaves the company and, if necessary, inspected for damage.
6. Deletion of personal data
According to GDPR, the company has to delete personal data that is no longer needed while considering statutory requirements for retention of employee data.
Employee offboarding: farewell party
To leave a good lasting impression and improve your own employer branding, you should organize a farewell party in honor of the departing employee. This can also have a positive impact on rating portals, such as Glassdoor or similar.
1. Prepare some farewell speech
The team leader, as well as management, should wish employees luck and success in the future on their last day even if the termination may not have been optimal.
2. Thank them for their work
Likewise, a recognition for their achievements in the company should be expressed and grateful for them.
3. Farewell email from management
Little gestures also make the difference. Management should find the time to send a farewell email, preferably a personal one.
Following these offboarding steps will ensure you don’t miss any important tasks during the process. A structured offboarding helps the employee and the entire company to handle the termination successfully and stress-free. Furthermore, employees who did not have proper offboarding experience are more likely to rate employers negatively on professional network portals such as Glassdoor.
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