Offboarding is a combination of two concepts: firstly, it's the period leading up to an employee's departure, and secondly, it's all the tasks that need to be carried out before the employee leaves (by the manager, by Human Resources or by the employee him/herself).
Offboarding is a combination of two concepts: firstly, it's the period leading up to an employee's departure, and secondly, it's all the tasks that need to be carried out before the employee leaves (by the manager, by Human Resources or by the employee him/herself).
The terms"onboarding" and"offboarding" are best understood in English. In the first case, the aim is toget the employee on board (with the company). In the second case, the aim is to get them off board in a calm and efficient manner. In both cases, a notion of movement is implicit. Logically, during these two key phases of the employee experience, the company continues to operate at cruising speed, and the window of opportunity to address these issues is not infinite.
To put it simply, this period begins when an employee's departure becomes inevitable. In most cases, this period begins with a discussion between the manager and the employee.
The origin of this discussion may be the anticipation of the end of the employee's internship, apprenticeship or fixed-term contract, but it may also be a notification of resignation, for example.
In the case of an internship, this discussion can take place 6 weeks or even 10 days before the end of the contract. Resignations, on the other hand, are subject to a standard notice period (usually 1 to 3 months).
As the time horizon differs according to the type of contract, it's not enough to reduce offboarding to the notion of the period before departure.
As the notion of period is not sufficient to define offboarding, it is also defined by the operational tasks that must be implemented before the employee leaves.
This employee offboarding checklist includes actions that are the responsibility of the employee (non-exhaustive examples):
➡️ Human Resources: organization of the exit interview (HR focus), delivery of the final salary, the employment certificate or, in certain cases, the Pôle Emploi certificate.
➡️ of the employee: preparation of his/her handover/knowledge transfer file, training of colleagues
➡️ of the manager: organization of the exit interview (operational focus), internal communication (announcement of departure, organization of a departure event)
Offboarding is not a period of inactivity, either for the employee or for the HR department or manager. These tasks enable the company to meet its legal obligations and the need for operational continuity. As soon as an employee's departure becomes unavoidable, a fundamental challenge is to define the schedule for carrying out these tasks, or "offboarding retroplanning".
Human Resources plays a key role in ensuring that legal obligations, such as deadlines, are met.
When it comes to more operational tasks, it's up to the manager to set his or her expectations of the employee, in terms of expected results, pace and schedule. He or she needs to keep the "offboardee" motivated right up to the last day, and the way in which he or she organizes the workload will be key.
If the manager asks the offboardee to prepare the handover too early, there's a risk that the information will be only partially up to date, and that the offboardee will exhaust himself on a "marathon task" with no end in sight. If he starts 1 week before the employee's departure, the manager runs the risk of the content being prepared in haste, and of the handover being unusable, both for himself and for the onboardee (taking over from theoffboardee).
Our recommendation is first and foremost to ensure that the legal deadlines are respected. Secondly, we recommend that our customers do not start the offboarding process until 4 to 6 weeks before the employee's actual departure date. This is the time needed to combine the employee's day-to-day job with the production of knowledge transfer tasks. It is essential that the manager and the offboardee work together to define deadlines for monitoring the progress of offboarding, whether it is carried out via the Komin offboarding solution or by some other means. Before embarking on this discussion, the manager can anticipate how the employee will behave during the offboarding process.
Earlier than 4 to 6 weeks before D-Day, the offboardee still considers his departure to be "a long way off", as the countdown hasn't really begun. The best condition for producing a knowledge transfer is "to be under a little tension" (which has nothing to do with pressure). To achieve this, the manager must set a final deadline and 1 or 2 "intermediate" moments of formal exchange during the 4 to 6 weeks of offboarding.
Komin specializes in helping companies reinvent their employee experience, from offboarding to onboarding. Yes, in this sense, because excellent onboarding starts with excellent offboarding.
"With Komin, we have documented our operating procedures 10x faster than with paper"
- J. Cerruti (Methods & Industrialization Manager)
