How to Conduct Employee Offboarding So It is a Positive Experience – Part Two

New hires are an important component of an organization’s success. When a new hire arrives the goal of each company needs to make sure of is that it does all it can to make certain the onboarding and training the new employee receives is excellent. What is the reason for this commitment to onboarding excellence? When a employee is hired it is critical that their experiences with the company when they begin working are top-notch because the entire goal of hiring talented new staff is to train them, retain them and keep them for the long term to build a solid foundation for ongoing success today and into the future.   

Developing A Structured Offboarding System Checklist

Creating a structured offboarding system that is used each time an employee is offboarding the top method to confirm the company has set system locked in to lower all risks associated with someone leaving the company. Prior to the last few days of an employees’ tenure, the company’s Human Resources manger or director needs to build an offboarding check list specifically design for the departing employee that spells all the tasks the HR department and the employee must finish prior to the employee leaving the company.

Featured below are parts to look at including on the company’s offboarding master checklist:

• Obtain the departing employee’s resignation letter.
• Give official written notice of the employee’s resignation letter.
• Set up an appointment with the employee to cover the offboarding tasks
• Communicate to the Payroll and IT departments that the employee is leaving.
• Input the employee termination into the company’s HR system.
• Cover all pertinent statement and agreements including conflict of interest, non-disclosure, non-compete and confidentiality.
• Cover transgressions that have happened and any broken statements or agreements that happened while they worked at the company.
• Collected any monetary fees or reimbursements owed and collect company credit cards.
• Complete a review of accrued paid time off not taken that they employee needs to be paid for at their exit.
• Work with the payroll department and instruct them to issue the employee’s final payroll check.
• Set up an appointment with the employee to cover company benefits including COBRA and 401k.

Featured below are parts to look at including on the employee’s offboarding checklist:

• Cover all upcoming or current work assignments and expected completion dates prior to departure.
• Develop a mini-job description and monthly task list for your job. Build a job-task workflow system featured all the tasks you do for your job for the person who will take over your job when you leave.
• Set aside the necessary files your replacement requires for their new job. Be sure to hand off any documents, files, or pertinent information your department or team needs to have before you leave.
• Give training to your replacement if requested.
• If you owe and expenses or need to reimburse the company, pay all of it before you leave.    
• Hand back any security passes, security badges, building keys, car keys, credit cards, smartphones, tablets or computers.

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When offboarding employing the company’s master checklist will assist you in making certain you are complying with its policies and lowering the chance of possible legal issues after the employee’s offboarding has been completed. During an employee’s offboarding, but sure to follow company protocol and document their job performance through their final day of employment. Follow company standard operating procedure and utilize is online employee management system to track and record the employees work performance, particularly as the offboarding process is taking place.

Following a checklist that is tailored to your organization will ensure that you are adhering to the best practices while reducing your risk of any legal implications once an employee has been offboarded. When offboarding an employee, you will want to be sure that their performance is well documented up until that point. For this reason, organizations should consider utilizing performance management software to track employees’ performance, good or bad, especially during the offboarding process.

Be Open About an Employees Departure.

Businesses suffer when rumors and gossip dominate the landscape at a company regarding the reason and employee is leaving. The rumor mill through a proverbial wrench in the company’s workflow. Do not hesitate to inform the pertinent staff that an employee is departing from the company. History tends to repeat itself and by that it means managers then to forget to release this information. Going this route, whether it is on purpose or not, will come as a shock and generate questions about the departing employee that are unnecessary. Unless an employee is leaving the company for cause, departing is normally just business.

Be sure to notify everyone that needs to be notified that an employee is leaving including their direct department, their team, the payroll department, the IT department, and vendors the employee manages. Taking these steps will ensure a smooth transition.