Parting ways is never easy. Business is no exception. If you value your company’s reputation, and you want to be perceived as a great employer, you should take care of the offboarding processes. How to do it? Let’s find out.
The Talk
The first step of offboarding is the talk. Depending on the situation, whether the employee decided to leave himself, or you have decided to fire him it might look slightly different. In the first situation, you should be asking some questions. In the second one, you should be prepared to answer them. You should not be very persistent. There will be time for that in the next steps. Right now the situation is very stressful for the leaving/fired employee so do not make it worse by conducting an interrogation.
Have you told the others?
Obviously, you and the soon-to-be-an-ex-employee know about the situation. The problem starts when you do not inform the other interested parties and when they learn about the fact through gossip. You should avoid that at all costs. The situation should be clear and there should be a statement from the company addressed to everyone who might be concerned. You do not have to inform the whole company but the team, the team leaders, and everyone else who is closely working with that person should be informed.
Who takes over the responsibilities?
This part is crucial. Before the employee leaves all his projects, tasks and meetings should be moved to other specialists from your company who can truly take care of the additional job. Moreover, you should make sure that everything will be explained to them. Do not try to move all the duties to one person. It may cause a lot of frustration and possibly another person leaving. Instead, try to delegate the tasks to a few people. That way nobody will be overwhelmed with the job and no one will feel like they are being punished.
The Interview
Why are you leaving? Were you satisfied with the job? What would you change in the company? Did you enjoy working with your team? Those are one of the most frequently asked exit interview questions. Basically, it is a more extended version of the primal talk. It should be a sum up of all the time spent in the company. Not only that, but it’s also the perfect time for you to get as much feedback as you possibly can. Be careful though. Depending on the situation the feedback might not be honest, so you have to treat it gingerly.
Offboarding’s Technicalities
Access’ cards, laptop, phone, keys to a car, benefits, personal belongings, and passwords. Those are all the things that the leaving party should hand over on the last day of work. If your company has a lot of those, then it might be a good idea to create a list to keep track of the already done activities. Remember this stage should happen on the last day of work! Taking away the company’s car or some of the benefits a few weeks or days before might cause a lot of unnecessary friction.
Is there a system that might help with the process?
You are very lucky. MintHCM has a full feature for offboarding which makes it all very easy to conduct. MintHCM gives you the tools to perform an informative exit interview, to get through other necessary procedures (e.g. returning equipment, signing documents), as well as to maintain a professional relationship with the ex-coworker. Click here to find out more about the feature.
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