According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average job tenure is now 4.1 years. Although there are many reasons for this increase in employee turnover, such as the pandemic and The Great Resignation, many companies fail to look into the specific motivations for employees leaving their organization. However, it’s actually very easy to find this out, especially if you use the right offboarding software.
So, what is employee offboarding software and why should you use it?
This article will discuss the benefits of using offboarding software. We will also discuss how using the right solution to automate offboarding can provide you with valuable insights into your employee experience.
Table of Contents
What is offboarding?
Let’s start with the basics. What is offboarding?
Employees leave your business for a number of reasons. They might leave because they are changing careers, moving to a different location, retiring, or seeking new opportunities. They might also leave because they are not happy in their role or with the employee experience that you offer. Implementing a thorough offboarding process can help you find out exactly why an employee has decided to leave your organization.
Essentially, whereas onboarding and orientation help new employees acquire the skills, knowledge and resources they need to perform their duties and blend into your corporate culture, offboarding serves as a formal separation between the employer and the exiting employee. The company is able to protect its interests and departing employees can transfer their knowledge back into the organization. Following a standardized process for offboarding also ensures that the relationship ends smoothly and on good terms.
What is offboarding software?
So how can offboarding software help with all this?
Employee offboarding software is a tool used by HR departments to manage the process of exiting employees from a company. This software helps you automate and streamline tasks such as revoking access to company systems, conducting exit interviews, and managing the return of company property.
For example, with Factorial’s offboarding software, you can centralize and automate your entire offboarding process so that everything runs smoothly each and every time an employee leaves your business. You also get access to a document manager, automatic workflows, electronic signature capabilities, and an employee portal to ensure optimal communication. All this helps you create a streamlined offboarding process that gives you access to all the insights you need to improve your employee experience and retain more employees in the future.
Why automate offboarding?
As with onboarding, the employee offboarding process is fully automatable. Despite this, research suggests that only 32% of organizations have a partially automated offboarding process, and only 5% have a fully automated employee exit procedure.
So what are the benefits of embracing automation?
Firstly, automation can streamline the offboarding process. This reduces the administrative burden on HR personnel and ensures that all necessary steps are taken in a timely and consistent manner. As a result, you can improve the overall efficiency of your HR department and free up resources for other tasks.
Secondly, automation can help to ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. This includes data protection laws and confidentiality agreements. By providing a structured process for handling sensitive information, organizations can minimize the risk of data breaches and legal disputes.
Thirdly, automation can help you maintain positive relationships with departing employees by providing them with a clear and transparent offboarding process. This can help to preserve the company’s reputation and reduce the risk of negative feedback or reviews.
10 top benefits of offboarding software
With the right solution, offboarding software can benefit both employers and employees in a number of ways.
Let’s take a look at 10 specific benefits of using employee offboarding software.
Offboarding software boosts your employer brand
Offboarding software can play a crucial role in boosting your employer brand, primarily because it helps you leave a positive final impression on employees who are leaving. This is important because when employees leave an organization, they often share their experiences with others, including colleagues, friends, and family. If their offboarding experience was positive, they are more likely to speak positively about you and recommend your organization to others.
So, how can offboarding software help with this exactly?
Firstly, employee offboarding software can help create a positive experience by providing a streamlined and organized process for departing employees. This can include access to resources and information about COBRA benefits, final pay and benefits, and other important details related to their departure. Moreover, clear communication and a well-structured process can help alleviate stress and anxiety for employees who are leaving.
Secondly, offboarding software can provide departing employees with an opportunity to share feedback and insights about their experience working for you. You can then use this feedback to improve your internal processes and further enhance your employer brand. Plus, your existing workforce can see that you value and respect your employees and that you are committed to continuously enhancing their experience with you. All this helps you attract and retain top talent.
Streamlines your exit interviews and procedures
Offboarding software can significantly streamline your exit interviews and procedures as it helps you create a structured and organized process for collecting feedback from departing employees.
For example, many offboarding software solutions include features for:
- Designing standardized exit interview questions: This helps you ensure that all your managers ask the right questions during each exit interview. That way, you can be sure that all important feedback is collected.
- Creating automated reminders: You can send automated reminders to departing employees to make sure they follow all steps in the offboarding process in a timely manner. This might include exit surveys or questionnaires, for example.
- Digital document management: You can digitalize and store all your exit interview notes so that your HR teams can easily access them at any time.
- Analytics and reporting: Offboarding software can generate exit interview analytics and reports, allowing your HR team to identify trends and areas for improvement.
- Seamless communication: Offboarding software facilitates seamless communication between HR teams and departing employees. That way, you can rest assured that all necessary information is shared and that any outstanding issues are addressed.
Enhances data security
Offboarding software enhances data security as it enables you to automate offboarding in your business. This reduces the risk of human error and ensures that you take all necessary steps to protect sensitive data.
This includes:
- Company assets: One of the key stages in the employee offboarding process is collecting company property from departing employees. You can use offboarding software to set automated reminders to remind employees that this equipment needs to be returned.
- Access management: Offboarding software can automate the process of revoking access to company systems and data, including access IDs, email accounts, and databases. That way, once an employee leaves, you can be certain that they no longer have access to sensitive company data.
- Encryption and secure storage: As an employer, you handle a lot of sensitive employee data during their time working for you. This includes names, addresses, trade union memberships, health and criminal records, and payroll information, to name a few examples. It’s important to protect this data, even after an employee has left your business. Employee offboarding software can encrypt and safely store this data, reducing the risk of data breaches.
- Data retention policies: To the same effect, offboarding software can help you implement data retention policies so that your HR team understands how to delete or achieve sensitive employee data in accordance with regulatory requirements.
- Audit trails: Finally, many offboarding software solutions include detailed audit trails so that you can track who accessed what data and when. This makes it much easier to identify any potential security breaches.
Facilitates transfer of knowledge
When an employee leaves your business, it’s important to make sure that they hand over their duties and transfer any necessary knowledge and expertise. That way, all the information is ready for their replacement. Or, if you don’t yet have a replacement, the rest of the team understands what they need to do to cover their work whilst you source and hire a new employee.
Offboarding software can facilitate this transfer of knowledge. How? By providing departing employees with a structured and organized process for sharing their knowledge with their colleagues and successors. Software can remind employees to document their processes, best practices, and other key information before they leave. That way, you can maintain continuity and efficiency. You can also avoid disruptions that might lead to a drop in overall productivity or customer care.
Uncovers the root causes behind your turnover
Your employees are the best people to help you understand what’s working well and not so well in your company. They experience first-hand what your employee experience is like. Not only that, but they can often pick up on issues that your managers might miss. This is especially true in the case of departing employees as they can offer open and honest feedback without fear of recrimination.
By using employee offboarding software in tandem with reports and analytics you can identify the root causes behind your employee turnover.
For example, you can find out if employees are leaving because of:
- Poor leadership skills
- Lack of opportunities for learning and development
- Toxic working environment
- Lack of diversity and inclusion
- Issues with your compensation and benefits policy
- No option to work remotely
- Problems with specific stages of your employee lifecycle
Offboarding software can also provide you with valuable data analytics so you can spot any potential problem areas that departing employees repeatedly highlight.
Offboarding software collects valuable employee feedback
Employee offboarding software can help you collect valuable employee feedback in a number of ways.
This includes:
- Standardized exit interviews: As we saw above, you can use offboarding software to design standardized templates for your exit interviews. That way, all departing employees are asked the same questions. Plus, you can easily analyze and compare the feedback that you collect over time.
- Anonymous feedback: You can share anonymous surveys before your exit interview to collect more honest and candid responses.
- Multi-channel feedback collection: With offboarding software, you can implement multiple channels for collecting feedback. This includes online surveys, email and in-person interviews, and suggestion boxes. A multi-channel approach also makes it easier for you to offer flexibility and convenience. This can be especially beneficial in the case of remote employees.
- Automated reminders: Offboarding software can send automated feedback reminders to departing employees. That way, you can be sure that you collect all important information before an employee’s last day.
Once you’ve collected all this feedback, you can then use it to improve your internal processes and enhance your employee experience.
Creates a positive company culture
Offboarding software can help organizations create a positive company culture. How? Because you can offer a smooth and respectful transition to departing employees. This helps you demonstrate your commitment to treating all employees with respect and dignity. And that can help you build trust, loyalty, and engagement – the foundation of a positive company culture.
Additionally, offboarding software provides you with valuable insights into your employee experience. That way, you can easily identify areas for improvement and make changes that foster a more positive and inclusive working environment.
Creates a streamlined employee experience
Onboarding and offboarding are two of the most crucial stages in the employee experience. This is because the first and last impressions that you leave are usually the most memorable.
When you use software to automate your offboarding process, you get access to features that help you streamline and enhance an employee’s experience from the moment they hand in their resignation. As we saw above, this is because offboarding software gives you a clear timeline for departing employees.
Plus, if you use a comprehensive solution such as Factorial’s HRIS, you also get access to features for enhancing your onboarding experience. This includes an employee onboarding checklist, digital onboarding tools, remote onboarding, and access to detailed onboarding metrics. Onboarding tools also save you money and help you build a loyal, productive, and satisfied workforce. All this contributes to your overall employee experience and helps you retain staff for longer.
Improves your internal communication channels
Offboarding software can help organizations improve their internal communication channels by providing a structured and transparent process for sharing information with departing employees.
This includes:
- Clear communication of offboarding procedures: You can use software to clearly communicate the offboarding process to both employees and managers. This includes offboarding procedures, expectations, and timelines.
- Consistent internal communication: The right solution can help you notify all relevant parties that an employee is leaving. This includes IT who will need to restrict data access on the employee’s last day. This helps you better coordinate an employee’s departure so that you avoid potential confusion or misunderstandings.
- Shared access to data and documents: Offboarding software can be used to provide shared access to relevant data and documents. That way, everyone is aligned and has access to the same information in real time.
Offboarding software helps you leave the door open to boomerang employees
Finally, offboarding software can help you leave the door open to boomerang employees. These are employees who leave your business but then return at a later date. These employees are highly valuable. Why? Because they already understand your business processes and your company culture and environment. Plus, you can save a lot of time and money in terms of training and onboarding.
By using all the above features to enhance your offboarding process, you can leave things on good terms and increase the chances that a quality employee might decide to return when their circumstances change. Leaving the door open also makes it far more likely that a departing employee will recommend you to their peers, boosting your reputation and helping you attract and retain top talent. And this ability to enhance your employee experience and employer brand is, ultimately, the biggest benefit of offboarding software.
