Out of sight but not out of mind. Great offboarding results in better employer branding and can enable you to drive change and improve engagement throughout the entire company. Get the four steps to improve your offboarding process.
What happens when an employee leaves your company?
Do they receive appreciation for their time in the company? Will they get an invitation to an exit-interview? Or are you unsure of what happens?
Offboarding is an important part of the employee journey, but is often neglected. Onboarding, on the contrary, is often taken more seriously. Here, employers are eager to make a good impression and get new employees to join the company culture.
However, offboarding is crucial as well and involuntary split-ups in particular breeds tricky situations: Emotions are peaking, misunderstandings are at stake, and you take a huge risk in damaging your company brand.
- Offboarding gone wrong can result in:
- Bad reviews on job sites and prevents talent from applying to your company
- Underperforming current employees due to a miserable atmosphere
- Revealed company secrets to competitors
- Costly lawsuits from the enraged employee
- On the contrary, offboarding gone right can result in better employer branding. Furthermore, great offboarding can enable you to drive change and improve engagement throughout the entire company.
- 4 steps: How to Boost Your Offboarding Process
1. Exit-interview
Conduct an interview with your departing employee. It can be done face-to-face, or it can be done digitally through your learning platform. Ask the same questions to each departing employee and align them with your employee engagement survey. In that way, you can connect the dots and drive change to increase engagement for current and future employees. This feedback is also invaluable to you, because you can detect issues with your company culture, that you were not aware of.
2. Communicate with Employees
Keep the communication up with your employees at all times. Especially, if it is regarding an involuntary departure. Silence easily reproduces fear amongst employees, and many might look for other opportunities – frightened to get the chop themselves.
3. Create Alumni Communities
Your former employees are ambassadors for your brand. They are out of sight, but not out of mind. Make a good offboarding process and there is a chance that former employees come back or recommend you as a great employer for potential candidates. Alumni communities is an offer to people who knows your brand. They can get you in touch with the right candidates or can possibly fill out new roles themselves. Especially, if they have gained new insights and experiences from other positions.
4. Value Their Contribution
No one wants the employee lifecycle to end on a bitter note. Say goodbye with a smile. Have a nice sent-off with snacks, drinks, and ask current employees to join. In that way, you show the departing employee that he or she was appreciated. Furthermore, it helps them remembering the good times in the company for the future.