Is your offboarding program how you want it to look?

Regardless, people will leave and it matters how you treat them.

This may seem antithetical to good management–after all, shouldn’t you care more about onboarding new employees and keeping your current employees happy and engaged? Sure, but it isn’t a zero sum game. You can have a great off-boarding program as well.

Why does it matter after someone decides to leave?

You want people to leave on a good note. For voluntary terminations, think of this as a marketing meeting.

Marketing may not be what you think of when someone resigns, but this is precisely what it is.

For the next 15-20 years, your company will be on this person’s resume. Every job interview they have, someone will ask about what they did at your company. 

Whenever your company name comes up, your former employee will say, “Oh, I used to work there.” Your goal is to have that be a positive statement, not a negative one.

When someone is looking at a job for your company, they’ll look at their connections on LinkedIn, find your former employee, and ask what it was like to work there.

These things are not unusual–they are facts about former employees. You want your employees to leave feeling positive about your company.

Of course, the best way to do this is to be a great employer the whole time someone works for you. But even if you are a great employer, how you handle someone when they submit their resignation makes a lot of difference in their perception of your company.

What does an offboarding process consist of?

It’s not just about collecting their keys and laptop, but about treating them correctly throughout the process. Here are some important tools:

• Respect the notice period. When someone resigns and says they will give you two weeks’ notice, the responsible thing to do is either let them work out the notice period or pay them for it and let them go early. Terminating on the spot without pay leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

• Don’t counter-offer to convince them to stay. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it demonstrates that you are incredibly cheap and only pay up when you have no other choice. Instead, congratulate them on their new jobs.

• Conduct an exit interview and take it seriously. Many employees don’t want to be honest in exit interviews because they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. But if someone does tell you that there is a problem, take it seriously. Investigate it. When appropriate, follow up with the former employee to let them know.

• Ensure the employees that you’d love to see them come back. Your company cannot offer everything to everybody, but boomerang employees can be an amazing tool. Yes, there are some employees you are thankful are going, but let most know you’d be thrilled to have them back.

• Make off-boarding easy. If they work remotely, send them the prepaid FedEx boxes for their equipment. Don’t require complicated handovers and endless meetings. 

• Congratulate people. It can be really hard on you when someone quits, but they’ve likely just found a new job, which is quite an accomplishment. Congratulate them sincerely.

What about people you terminate?

Not everyone that leaves does so on good terms. If you fire someone for poor performance or cause you’ll still want to conduct an exit interview and treat them fairly, but here are some other things to do.

• Don’t fight unemployment. Your number one goal in termination is to make the person go away and never bother you again. Letting them get unemployment makes that more likely. Provide them with instructions on how to apply as well. Anything you can do to make it easier will improve the term.

• Treat them with respect. Don’t have a security guard stand over them while they pack their stuff unless you have a genuine concern about violence or theft. It just makes it worse.

• Use generic termination messages for remaining employees. Don’t be part of the gossip problem.

If, on the other hand, you are terminating someone as part of a reduction in force, all the same caveats for voluntary employees apply–except for congratulations and counter-offers. But there are some additional things:

• Provide help for the job search. This can be a formal outplacement firm or a class taught by your in-house recruiter on best write resumes. Or give them a coupon for an online job searching course. Whatever you do, your goal is to help them.

• Provide severance when possible. Budgets don’t always allow it, and severance is rarely required by law in the United States (consult with your attorney if you’re terminating groups of people), but if you can offer severance at all, it certainly helps the off-boarding process.

• Let them know you will prioritize them should they re-apply. Rehires make a lot of sense for you and for them, and it makes people feel better about the situation. Of course, don’t say this if you won’t. Lying is unacceptable.

Making sure your process as people leave your company runs smoothly and treats people well indicates to your current employees that you will treat them well when they leave. This makes for a better and more trusting environment as well.

A good off-boarding program can make all the difference in how your former–and current–employees feel about your company. 

Regardless, people will leave and it matters how you treat them.

This may seem antithetical to good management–after all, shouldn’t you care more about onboarding new employees and keeping your current employees happy and engaged? Sure, but it isn’t a zero sum game. You can have a great off-boarding program as well.

Why does it matter after someone decides to leave?

You want people to leave on a good note. For voluntary terminations, think of this as a marketing meeting.

Marketing may not be what you think of when someone resigns, but this is precisely what it is.

For the next 15-20 years, your company will be on this person’s resume. Every job interview they have, someone will ask about what they did at your company. 

Whenever your company name comes up, your former employee will say, “Oh, I used to work there.” Your goal is to have that be a positive statement, not a negative one.

When someone is looking at a job for your company, they’ll look at their connections on LinkedIn, find your former employee, and ask what it was like to work there.

These things are not unusual–they are facts about former employees. You want your employees to leave feeling positive about your company.

Of course, the best way to do this is to be a great employer the whole time someone works for you. But even if you are a great employer, how you handle someone when they submit their resignation makes a lot of difference in their perception of your company.

What does an offboarding process consist of?

It’s not just about collecting their keys and laptop, but about treating them correctly throughout the process. Here are some important tools:

• Respect the notice period. When someone resigns and says they will give you two weeks’ notice, the responsible thing to do is either let them work out the notice period or pay them for it and let them go early. Terminating on the spot without pay leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

• Don’t counter-offer to convince them to stay. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it demonstrates that you are incredibly cheap and only pay up when you have no other choice. Instead, congratulate them on their new jobs.

• Conduct an exit interview and take it seriously. Many employees don’t want to be honest in exit interviews because they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. But if someone does tell you that there is a problem, take it seriously. Investigate it. When appropriate, follow up with the former employee to let them know.

• Ensure the employees that you’d love to see them come back. Your company cannot offer everything to everybody, but boomerang employees can be an amazing tool. Yes, there are some employees you are thankful are going, but let most know you’d be thrilled to have them back.

• Make off-boarding easy. If they work remotely, send them the prepaid FedEx boxes for their equipment. Don’t require complicated handovers and endless meetings. 

• Congratulate people. It can be really hard on you when someone quits, but they’ve likely just found a new job, which is quite an accomplishment. Congratulate them sincerely.

What about people you terminate?

Not everyone that leaves does so on good terms. If you fire someone for poor performance or cause you’ll still want to conduct an exit interview and treat them fairly, but here are some other things to do.

• Don’t fight unemployment. Your number one goal in termination is to make the person go away and never bother you again. Letting them get unemployment makes that more likely. Provide them with instructions on how to apply as well. Anything you can do to make it easier will improve the term.

• Treat them with respect. Don’t have a security guard stand over them while they pack their stuff unless you have a genuine concern about violence or theft. It just makes it worse.

• Use generic termination messages for remaining employees. Don’t be part of the gossip problem.

If, on the other hand, you are terminating someone as part of a reduction in force, all the same caveats for voluntary employees apply–except for congratulations and counter-offers. But there are some additional things:

• Provide help for the job search. This can be a formal outplacement firm or a class taught by your in-house recruiter on best write resumes. Or give them a coupon for an online job searching course. Whatever you do, your goal is to help them.

• Provide severance when possible. Budgets don’t always allow it, and severance is rarely required by law in the United States (consult with your attorney if you’re terminating groups of people), but if you can offer severance at all, it certainly helps the off-boarding process.

• Let them know you will prioritize them should they re-apply. Rehires make a lot of sense for you and for them, and it makes people feel better about the situation. Of course, don’t say this if you won’t. Lying is unacceptable.

Making sure your process as people leave your company runs smoothly and treats people well indicates to your current employees that you will treat them well when they leave. This makes for a better and more trusting environment as well.

A good off-boarding program can make all the difference in how your former–and current–employees feel about your company.