Whether an employee is resigning or being let go, it’s important to make sure they exit your small business properly.
Following the right employee offboarding procedures can ensure your business and its former employees’ part ways with little to no impact to either party.
Here are just a few ways to effectively use an employee offboarding strategy at your small business:
Importance of Offboarding
Although hiring employees is one of the most important aspects of running a small business, letting employees go is sometimes equally as important. That’s exactly why your business should have the right employee offboarding procedure in place.
Without an effective offboarding procedure, your former employees could still have access to your business network and other private information.
Likewise, not going through the proper offboarding steps could result in your former employees remaining in possession of important business documents and devices such as laptops and smart phones.
Fortunately, there are certain steps you can take to reduce the impact employee offboarding will have on your small business, which is especially important in the case of non-amicable terminations.
Create an Offboarding Checklist
There are a number of steps to remember when offboarding employees. To make sure you cover all the bases, create an offboarding checklist.
The checklist should include the signing of non-disclosure agreements as well as the returning of all business equipment obtained by the employee during employment.
As the following article looks at, along with the 5 ways to easy-button employee offboarding, your checklist should also include severance pay options as well as the opportunity for the employee in question to revisit any unresolved grievances.
Making sure your offboarding checklist includes locking the former employee out of all online accounts associated with your small business is also wise.
Finally, one of the last items on your offboarding checklist should be the exit interview.
Perform an Exit Interview
Exit interviews are a great way for your small business to better retain employees in the future. They are commonly used in cases where an employee either amicably resigns or moves on to another company.
Much like a traditional entrance interview, an exit interview involves asking a number of questions that revolve around the employee’s departure.
For example, you might ask the employee if she or he found their work challenging and rewarding. Likewise, you might ask if their salary and pay scale was satisfactory.
The questions you ask during an exit interview should paint a picture as to why the employee is offboarding.
The broader the picture, the better your chances are of reducing offboarding with future employees.
Get it in Writing
In cases where an employee leaves your small business due to termination, it’s important to get their departure from your business in writing. This includes signing documents stating that they have returned all of your business’s property, files, and other physical documents.
Non-disclosure agreements are only a small portion of the documentation your business should collect during the offboarding process.
By making sure your employees sign-off on their offboarding, you can avoid any issues that may arise after the employee’s termination.
When it comes to parting ways with your employees, keep in mind the offboarding steps mentioned above.
About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including employee offboarding and small business.