Your Offboarding Checklist, From Data Security To Benefits: 10 Tips

When an employee leaves your organization, HR professionals are often tasked with managing a sendoff that allows employees to leave with dignity while also protecting the company's interests.

Whether an employee quits or retires, it’s how you handle the offboarding process that matters. With high turnover risk across the US, managers and HR professionals should focus their efforts on creating a positive exit experience. But only 10% of leaders believe their company handles the process successfully.

The more time and care you take with exit formalities, the better the offboarding experience will be for your employees—and the better their final impression of your organization may be. And that’s important, since they will likely share their feelings about your firm in online reviews and by word of mouth.

Read on to learn how to create a sound offboarding process and leave a positive last impression. Ensure you crack offboarding in a smooth and effective way with BambooHR.

What Is the Offboarding Process?

Offboarding is the process of formally separating an employee from your organization. You’ll offboard an employee whether the separation is due to resignation, termination, or retirement. But the effects of offboarding continue long after they leave.

Offboarding ensures a smooth transition for the employer, employee, and their colleagues.

The departing employee will normally go through a series of steps as part of the offboarding process, such as:

• Returning corporate property
• Transferring responsibilities to coworkers
• Deactivating work passwords and accounts
• Participating in an exit interview

To this effect, the employee offboarding process serves two purposes. In one way, it mimizes the impact of exiting employees and helps the organization enhance the employee experience by setting up as smooth a transition as possible. But it also shapes the final perception that employees will have of the organization once they’ve left.

That’s why effective offboarding is pivotal to your retention strategy.

Why an Employee Offboarding Checklist Matters

A strong offboarding process helps your organization by:

• Preventing legal and security problems
• Transferring exiting employees’ essential knowledge
• Making improvements based on feedback from employee exit interviews
• Maintaining continuing relationships with departing employees that may encourage them to return in the future (known as boomerang employees)

Despite these benefits, a study by Gallup found organizations struggle to create a satisfying exit experience, with 24% of employees experiencing rudeness or hostility after voluntarily resigning.

This points to an onus on managers and HR leaders to create a positive offboarding process for greater growth, performance, retention, and employee engagement.

Keeping the door open for boomerang employees is a trend that both employers and workers increasingly welcome. A report by Harvard Business Review found that about 20% of new hires are boomerang employees.

A separate UKG study reported that 43% of employees who resigned admitted they were better off at their old job. Sometimes, the grass isn’t as green on the other side.

A thorough and thoughtful offboarding checklist for employees also benefits the departing worker in other ways. For example, it helps smooth their transition by providing info about such things as their final paycheck, company retirement savings account, and COBRA health insurance coverage options.

10 Actions Items for Your Offboarding Checklist

The key components of the offboarding process go far beyond conducting exit interviews. Done correctly, offboarding maintains institutional knowledge as well as your relationship with the departing employee.

It’s crucial to remember that the exit process for employees differs depending on the nature of their departure. But being mindful, considerate, and inclusive always goes a long way.

Wondering how to carry out offboarding on a more granular scale? Here are 10 actionable items for your offboarding checklist.

1. Agree on a final day with the employee.

Agree on a leaving date, announce the employee's departure, and arrange next steps for anyone who’ll be taking over their responsibilities.

2. Organize handovers and confirmation of outstanding projects.

Document the employee’s departure with a letter of resignation or termination and encourage them to provide a list of their projects and deadlines.

3. Allow time for training and upskilling of other team members.

Allow enough time for the departing employee to train their replacement or other employees who’ll assume their duties. If there’s not enough time to do this in person, request instructions in writing at least one week before their leaving date.

4. Confirm what company equipment needs returning.

Collect all the departing employee's company equipment, such as their laptop, phone, and security pass.

5. Revoke the employee’s access to all systems.

Change passwords and revoke access to systems, platforms, and accounts the departing employee uses.

6. Verify the necessary employee documents.

Make sure the departing employee is aware of any contractual obligations, such as non-disclosures.

7. Prepare the employee’s last payroll.

Arrange the departing employee’s final paycheck and any severance pay, then remove them from the payroll.

8. Issue any relevant packages or benefits.

Provide information about the departing employee’s 401(k), COBRA health insurance coverage, and other benefits.

9. Schedule an exit interview, and finalize the paperwork.

Conduct an exit interview, and plan for any action items prompted by the departing employee’s feedback.

10. Wish the employee farewell, and stay in touch.

Gather farewell messages into a company-wide email to celebrate the departing employee, thank them for their contributions, and encourage them to stay in touch.

Exit Interview Questions and Tips to Say a Friendly Farewell

The exit interview is one of the most important elements of the offboarding process. It serves two main purposes:

• Helping your firm benefit from the exiting employee’s experience
• Aiding an employee’s transition out of your organization

Think of the exit interview as a chance to learn things about your organization that you might never hear otherwise. A departing employee is free to say what they’ve seen and experienced on the job without fear of reprisal.

So, they are often willing to offer frank, constructive, and insightful feedback that you can act on to improve your organization. For this reason, implementing exit interview best practices is key to concluding the offboarding process.

Here are a few good exit interview questions to ask to help get the conversation started:

• What did you like the most and least about working here?
• What did you think of the way you were managed?
• What would make this organization a better place to work?
• Would you recommend working here to a friend? Why or why not?

Once the conversation flows, you can incorporate more in-depth questions, from role-specific to forward-facing. The most important thing is to understand the employee experience from their perspective and adapt accordingly.

An exit interview is also an ideal opportunity to thank the employee for their contributions to the organization’s progress and express interest in maintaining a relationship—perhaps by inviting them to join your employee alumni network. You can also explain details about benefits, references, and other matters that’ll ease the employee’s transition.

Keep in mind, an exit interview may not go smoothly if an employee is leaving on negative terms. Still, listen carefully, thank them for their input, and part on amicable terms if you can.

Next Steps: Implement Your Offboarding Process

Great offboarding doesn’t just happen because somebody made a list. By staying focused on gathering feedback, expressing gratitude, and assisting each departing employee's transition, HR professionals can transform turnover into an experience that’s valuable for all parties.

With offboarding software, you can streamline your offboarding process, saving time and effort, ensuring compliance, and helping you make sure nothing falls through the cracks. BambooHR brings offboarding into one centralized system, allowing you to build customized offboarding checklists, collect e-signatures for exit documents, manage an employee’s final paycheck, and more.