Employees may leave a company for a number of reasons: a new job opportunity, retirement, sickness or a change in family circumstances. These employees need to be removed from the employee roll call in the right way using an efficient offboarding process.A systematic and thoughtful offboarding process will ensure you fulfil your legal requirement as an employer and close the employment contract with good grace and due diligence. There is also the critical matter of security to consider when an employee leaves the company. According to research, 89 percent of departed employees still had access to company software systems and 49 percent had used these systems after their departure.
Whether an employee hands in notice or is terminated, good communication is essential. Don't delay in informing team members, managers and subordinates. If the employee was in a customer-facing role, you may have to inform customers, too.
From protecting systems access to issuing the employee's final paycheck, there are a number of logistical tasks you will need to action before an employee departs. Many organizations have an offboarding process that is systematically passed through various teams to ensure the right logistics happen at the right time.For example, IT needs to be informed about the employee departure to revoke any hardware or software access, and payroll needs departure date information to arrange the final pay process.
One employee leaving can leave a huge hole in your organization. By creating a smooth transition plan, you can ensure that this gap is filled as quickly as possible and with the least about of disruption. This may involve hiring a successor externally, promoting another member of staff to fill the position or reviewing the job position to see if responsibilities can be shared across the team.
Before the employee heads out of the door for the very last time, there are a number of final departure details that should be taken care of. An exit interview can provide valuable insights into what does and doesn't work at the company.You will also need to provide letters of reference and exit documentation, such as final pay information, contracts or a certificate of service. This will depend on how the employee left the company.
There are a number of loose ends you may need to address following the departure of the employee. For example, don't take it for granted that the employee's security access has been revoked. It is always wise to check.