What is and what does offboarding an employee involve
Employee offboarding is the whole process of leaving, when an employee or employer terminates the employment and the employee leaves the organization. The offboarding includes everything from job transfer, knowledge transfer to formal termination of employment.
- Completion of the work and tasks assigned
- Handing over the work and tasks to successors or other employees
- Handing over functions and responsibilities, authority to successors or other employees
- Return of work equipment, property, tools, or other items
- Passing on or changing passwords, keys, access cards
- Changing access to company systems, email, etc.
- Exit interview upon the termination of employment
- Exit questionnaire
- Resolution of leave, severance
- Formal documents (exit letter, income certificate - pink slip/P45, etc.)
Transfer of work during leave process
- Knowledge transfer is incremental or one-off, remember that some knowledge cannot be transferred in units of hours or days
- It involves transferring all the work of the employee, their agendas, processes, & tasks
- Completion and handover of work - assumption of duties, responsibilities and authority
- Onboarding training
Removing access and permissions
- A managed employee handover is also important from a safety perspective
- It is necessary to remove all access from the employee
- Access to physical premises - handing over keys, access cards, PINs etc.
- Removing access to systems where the employee has had access, company applications, software, cloud services, VPNs, access to shared storage
- Change passwords if necessary
Handing over of work equipment
- The company must keep a record of all work equipment used by the employee
- This is usually a telephone, computer, various tools, instruments and other equipment
Completion of paperwork and legal obligations
- Compliance with legal obligations and the correct execution of all documents is essential
- Termination of employment contract, notice of termination
- All documents required by local regulations
List of activities that must be carried out when the employee leaves
It is important that the company has a list of all the activities that must be carried out when an employee leaves. In Aptien you can easily create your own plan of activities for the employee's departure.
Why is employee offboarding important?
Managed employee offboarding is key to maintaining the continuity of your organization's operations, it is important from a security perspective and it is important to maintain your organization's reputation. It's a complete process, not just a completed checklist at the front desk. The role of the senior manager and mutual cooperation is important. Good communication prevents the spread of half-truths and speculation.