Leaving a company can be complicated for both the employee and the employer.
This ultimate guide to offboarding simplifies the process by providing a clear framework and best practices for transitioning employees out smoothly.
You’ll learn the step-by-step offboarding procedure, how to safeguard intellectual property, tips for communications and checklists, guidance tailored to different roles, and more.
Let’s begin!
Key Takeaways
- Offboarding is as crucial as onboarding for ensuring smooth transitions, protecting company assets, and maintaining a positive employer brand.
- Thoughtful offboarding can prevent data breaches, loss of knowledge, and negative impacts on the employer brand, while also leaving departing employees with a positive last impression.
- Leveraging technology in offboarding streamlines administrative tasks, enhances data security, and ensures a consistent process, ultimately benefiting both the organization and its former employees.
Introduction to Offboarding
Offboarding refers to the process of transitioning an employee out of a company when they leave.
It is the counterpart to onboarding and is equally important for protecting company assets and enabling smooth transitions.
Defining the Offboarding Process
The offboarding process involves completing administrative tasks, securing company data and assets, and transferring knowledge before an employee’s last day.
Key goals include:
- Revoking access to company systems and accounts
- Collecting company property like laptops and keys
- Documenting the exiting employee’s knowledge
- Providing feedback through exit interviews
Following structured offboarding processes minimizes security risks from departing employees while gathering feedback to improve retention.
Why Offboarding Matters
Neglecting structured offboarding can lead to:
- Data breaches if former employees retain system access
- Loss of tribal knowledge with no documentation or turnover
- Damaged employer brand through negative glassdoor reviews
Conversely, thoughtful offboarding leaves a positive last impression and enables smoother transitions.
How do you successfully offboard an employee?
Offboarding is the process of transitioning an employee out of a company.
A smooth offboarding process allows the employee to leave gracefully while protecting the company’s interests.
Here are seven key steps to take when offboarding an employee:
Understand the reason for the exit
When an employee resigns, it’s important to understand why they are leaving.
This insight can help the company improve retention rates. Exit interviews are a useful way to gather this feedback.
Communicate the employee’s departure
When an employee gives notice that they will be leaving the company, it is important to set a clear departure date and make an announcement to relevant team members.
The departure date should take into account any unused vacation time or contractual notice periods.
Best practice is to make the announcement as soon as possible, while being sensitive to the employee’s preferences.
The announcement should thank the employee for their contributions and let the team know who will be taking on their responsibilities.
Complete paperwork and administrative tasks
HR should handle any outstanding paperwork, like final paychecks and benefits paperwork.
Collect company property, disable access cards, and complete termination paperwork.
Complete a knowledge transfer
Before the employee’s last day, have them document key information and train others on their responsibilities. This ensures work is handed off properly.
Here are some tactics:
- Shadowing: Have key employees shadow the departing employee to learn their responsibilities first-hand.
- Documentation: Have the employee document key processes, contacts, and projects to leave behind.
- Introductions: Introduce the employee’s replacement and set up meetings with key contacts for warm hand-offs.
Hold an exit interview
Exit interviews are a valuable opportunity to gather feedback on an employee’s experience at the company.
They can provide insights into reasons for leaving, areas for improvement, and how to retain top talent.
Use open-ended questions that encourage honest feedback about compensation, work environment, management, etc.
Listen without judgment and highlight key themes in the responses.
Revoke employee access
On the employee’s last day, it is crucial to remove access and retrieve company property to limit security risks.
This includes revoking access badges, system logins, email accounts, and remote access.
Also collect keys, ID cards, laptops, cell phones, and any other company-owned equipment.
Close Out Administrative Items
Finally, be sure to close out any outstanding administrative items related to payroll, benefits, company accounts, and expenses.
Address final paychecks, paid time off payouts, benefit transitions, and submission of any last expense reports. Closing these items out properly ensures compliance and a clean break.
Develop a short-term and long-term coverage plan
Create a plan to cover the employee’s duties in the short and long-term.
This may involve redistributing work temporarily or posting a job requisition for a replacement.
Planning the Offboarding Journey
Offboarding can be an emotional time for both the employee leaving and those they leave behind.
Having a structured offboarding process in place shows respect, maintains company integrity, and supports the departing employee.
Timeline Coordination with Hiring New Employees
It’s important to coordinate the offboarding timeline with hiring new employees. This ensures continuity of operations by:
- Having overlap for knowledge transfer
- Minimizing coverage gaps from open positions
- Enabling the new hire to receive equipment/access when the outgoing employee departs
Schedule a kickoff meeting with relevant stakeholders from Day 1 to map out key dates and transition milestones.
Communication Strategies for Offboarding
Effective offboarding communication should be:
- Timely: Inform key stakeholders of the departure as early as appropriate. Don’t delay announcements.
- Transparent: Clearly explain the circumstances and next steps without speculation.
- Consistent: Use the same messaging across groups to prevent misinformation.
This maintains trust and alignment across the organization.
Offboarding and Recruiting: Balancing Exit and Entry
Recruiting should begin prior to the employee departure to allow for training overlap between outgoing and incoming staff.
Key steps include:
- Post openings before last day
- Schedule interviews during notice period
- Make offer at least 1 week before last day
- Announce new hire prior to departure
This ensures the new employee can be onboarded efficiently.
Creating an Offboarding Checklist
An offboarding checklist should include:
- Access removal: Revoke building, system and tool access
- Equipment return: Collect laptops, phones, ID badges, keys etc.
- Documentation: Transfer critical knowledge via thorough handoff notes
- Farewell plan: Schedule goodbye events to provide closure
Checklists create structure during emotional departures. Customize lists based on employee seniority and role.
The Role of Technology in Offboarding
Technology can play a pivotal role in streamlining and securing the offboarding process.
By automating manual tasks and centralizing data, technology enables organizations to offboard employees more efficiently while protecting sensitive information.
Automating Offboarding Workflows
- HR software with offboarding features can automatically disable access when an employee is terminated. This removes access to email, servers, SaaS applications, etc.
- Digital checklists ensure all offboarding tasks are completed, such as collecting devices and having the employee sign paperwork.
- Document management software tracks the return of company assets and stores exit interview notes.
Automation reduces the burden on IT and HR while decreasing the risk of errors or non-compliance. It also creates consistency in the offboarding process.
Data Security and Privacy Considerations
- Implement identity and access management solutions to control access and revoke permissions.
- Encrypt devices that contain sensitive data. Use remote wipe if the device is lost.
- Anonymize employee data that must be retained. Remove personal details that are no longer required.
- Follow regulations like GDPR when managing employee data. Delete data upon request.
Taking technological measures to secure data protects the company from data breaches involving former employee information.
Digital Offboarding Tools and Platforms
There are an increasing number of offboarding tools available:
- HR software like BambooHR and Zenefits have offboarding features for task assignment and system access removal.
- Employee directory software like PeopleDoc can disable all systems linked to the employee.
- Offboarding checklists like Rippling automate manual processes around asset return and closures.
Choosing solutions that integrate with existing tech stack leads to the most seamless experience.
Following Up After Offboarding
Building an Alumni Network
Maintaining relationships with former employees can be beneficial for both the company and the former employees.
Consider creating an alumni network to stay connected with top talent even after they leave.
An alumni network allows you to:
- Get referrals from former employees for open positions
- Bring back top performers as “boomerang employees”
- Keep former employees engaged as brand advocates
To build an effective alumni network:
- Create a company LinkedIn alumni group to stay connected
- Send a quarterly alumni newsletter with company updates
- Host annual alumni events for networking
Keeping former top talent engaged can yield future recruiting and marketing dividends.
Providing References
As a manager, you may be asked to provide a reference for a former direct report.
Having a positive reference from a former manager allows an employee to continue growing their career.
When providing a reference:
- Verify the employee’s permission to serve as a reference
- Share relevant feedback on their strengths and achievements
- Provide examples that demonstrate their capabilities
- Focus commentary on their positive contributions
Giving honest, positive references for strong performers can support their ongoing career development.
Boomerang Employees
Some of your best employees may leave at some point for new opportunities. But they may eventually come back as “boomerang employees”.
Boomerang employees offer many advantages, since they:
- Require less ramp-up time
- Understand your company culture
- Likely left on good terms
Consider rehiring former top talent who:
- Departed professionally on good terms
- Exited due to external circumstances
- Demonstrated strong performance
Keeping the door open for potential boomerangs can yield future recruiting wins.
Continuously Improving the Offboarding Process
Improving offboarding processes through ongoing review and feedback can optimize the experience for departing employees and gather valuable insights for the company.
Review Exit Interview Data
Analyzing exit interview trends over time can uncover areas for improvement in the employee lifecycle.
Track feedback on managers, benefits, work environment, and other factors to pinpoint pain points.
Aggregate anonymous feedback to identify systemic issues affecting retention and satisfaction.
Solicit Manager Feedback
Managers often have direct visibility into the challenges and frustrations departing team members faced.
Connect with managers after offboardings to get their perspective on process gaps that should be addressed.
Document suggested improvements for future analysis.
Evaluate Alumni Sentiment
Staying connected with former employees allows a company to monitor its employer brand over time.
Periodically sampling alumni attitudes can reveal whether recent departures remain advocates who recommend the company to others.
Sustained positive sentiment indicates the offboarding process upheld goodwill despite the separation.
Conclusion and Next Steps
As you develop an offboarding process for your company, here are some key recommendations to ensure it is strategic and effective:
- Communicate early and clearly. Let the employee know what to expect in terms of timeline, procedures, and changes to access and permissions. Provide clear guidelines on wrapping up final projects and transitioning work.
- Document institutional knowledge. Conduct exit interviews and debriefs to capture the employee’s knowledge, contacts, and insights before they leave. Identify how to transfer important information.
- Revoke access proactively. As soon as the employee gives notice, revoke access to sensitive company systems and data that are not needed for their final projects.
- Collect company property. Have a checklist ready of items to collect such as laptops, keys, access cards, and company credit cards. Handle returns efficiently.
- Check in with the team. If the employee managed others, communicate changes in reporting structure. Check in on workload and morale.
By putting forethought into offboarding and handling it strategically, you can protect company assets, retain institutional knowledge, and ensure smooth transitions for remaining team members.
The process should be seen as the final step in the employee lifecycle. When done right, it enables both the company and employee to move forward positively.
