Taking care of an employee's departure makes him or her an ambassador: a powerful element in your employer brand.
When entering the job market, young graduates, like others, have increasingly high expectations in terms of self-fulfilment and recognition. In the course of their studies, they gradually define a certain future project that meets their expectations in terms of tasks to be carried out, working conditions and relationships, the purpose of work (meaning) and the centrality of work (the place it occupies in their lives). Even though young people are aware that they are less likely than previous generations to have a standard of living higher than, or even equal to, that of their parents, they remain highly optimistic and their aspirations have not been downgraded. On the contrary, they are increasingly demanding.
But these aspirations, somewhere between reality and dream, between the possible and the ideal, can "take a beating" when they encounter the reality of the working world. Their first experiences, their first impressions largely influence their professional aspirations.
Young people are now looking for a place where they can fulfil their potential; they are now aware that this first job need no longer be synonymous with job stability, but simply a first step on their career path. Their career paths are increasingly punctuated by breaks, job changes or a return to study, and the idea of changing jobs regularly to learn more and take part in new projects is becoming widespread. They say they are ready to leave their job the day it no longer provides them with enough satisfaction or "challenges".
These work aspirations and expectations are turning companies upside down. Employees are less and less utilitarian; the purpose of employment is no longer simply to "earn a living"; on the contrary, they are becoming increasingly involved and even passionate about their jobs.The purpose of work becomes self-esteem, self-fulfillment and self-improvement. In 1990, Maccoby put forward the concept of the "self-developer", a new generation of employees wishing to apply to the workplace the intellectual and communicative skills they acquired before entering the job market. For these generations, work is a key element in the process of self-development and self-realization.
This change in mentality is all the more marked when we compare aspirations expressed before starting work with those expressed as they progress through the job market. Along the way, employees become more expressive, but they are also more ambitious at the start of their careers. Their first professional experiences are therefore fundamental. It's up to companies to do all they can to meet the expectations of these new generations. They are more passionate and committed than their predecessors. This poses a new challenge for companies, and in particular for managers, who must now invest more in enabling their employees to achieve their goals in terms of self-fulfilment and recognition. To this end, the care given to an employee's first and last impressions of a company is becoming ever more important.
Faced with these new generations with growing aspirations, companies are implementing strategies to enable them to satisfy their desires. The importance of first impressions during a professional experience is not new, but the integration and retention of employees during their first days and weeks is.Onboarding is in vogue, and solutions for structuring it have multiplied over the last 10 years to give employees a remarkable first impression.
According to Hansen and Danaher (1999), perceived quality and confidence are largely influenced by initial impressions. However, the same study shows that the final impression influences the satisfaction expressed by the employee. Whereas the initial impression relates to onboarding, the final impression relates tooffboarding, i.e. the way an employee's career ends. The final impression perceived by the employee is theultimate assessment of his or her experience, and these last moments are therefore decisive. Yet offboarding remains on the sidelines. The management of departures is not considered in the same way as the management of arrivals, and the initial impression is therefore tainted by the final impression. The final impression is the employee's ultimate opinion, so it's in companies' interest to invest in managing these final moments.
What do you remember about a fireworks display? The finale. What's the most memorable part of watching a film? The final moments of the film, when everything unravels. At a concert, when is the most popular music played? The last few minutes. Why should it be any different for the final moments in a company, when offboarding can bring the adventure to a remarkable close with a real finale that will leave a lasting impression on the employee's mind?
New generations are often faced with an experience that is more frustrating than engaging. Indeed, onboarding acts as a promise made to the employee, a promise that more or less fulfills his or her aspirations, but which in any case aims to build loyalty and integration. These first days create a certain expectation and hope in the employee, but if everything collapses in the last few days, the frustration is such that the employee will remember little else. Preparing for the last few days, just as you would for the first few, allows you to value the progress made by the employee, and to take a step back from what he or she has been able to contribute. N
s we have seen, this need for recognition and the feeling of having participated and evolved within the project is fundamental for the new generations. Careful offboarding therefore means assuring employees that their aspirations have been fulfilled. Leaving one's job with the feeling of being just another person, of not having left a mark on the company, is no longer compatible with the changing mentalities of the younger generation. More often than not, employees want to leave a good impression, especially in the age of Linkedin recommendations and systematic reference checks. So it's important to take advantage of their final weeks to offer them a remarkable offboarding experience. By sharing their experience and knowledge before they leave, employees will feel they have left their mark.
The question remains: what does the company gain from investing in offboarding? What, in concrete terms, does it allow you to enhance the employee's career path? Let's find out together.
When looking for a job, young talents are increasingly attentive to a company's reputation and image. Just as we check the quality of a restaurant or hotel on Google or Tripadvisor, we can now do the same for companies thanks to rating platforms such as Glassdoor or ChooseMyCompany. The new generations live in an age of reviews, ratings and recommendations. While until now, the focus has been almost exclusively on customer reviews and customer experience (TrustPilot), employee reviews are becoming increasingly important. An employee's opinion is a sign of trust, an internal, realistic opinion that gives a concrete picture of the experience at a job, or more generally within a company. Companies therefore have every interest in satisfying their employees' expectations to the best of their ability, an onerous task which falls almost entirely on the shoulders of managers and Human Resources Departments.
To ensure that an employee leaves the company with a very good image of their employer, it's important to look after not only their first moments with the company, but above all their "last mile". Valuing an employee's career and recognizing the work he or she has accomplished throughout his or her time with the company has not traditionally been at the heart of HR strategies. With new generations of employees being far more expressive and communicative than their predecessors, there is a growing interest in implementing onboarding and offboarding programs. But it's not just a matter of how well the company scores on Glassdoor. Supporting employees throughout their career is a real investment in the future.
Indeed, when an employee leaves a company, his or her adventure with the company doesn't come to an end, all the more so if both parties have parted on a good note. The phenomenon of boomerang recruitment (when an ex-employee joins the company again) is just one example. They may also return as customers or partners. If their experience with the company was a memorable one, because it helped them to realize their full potential and develop, they won't hesitate to come back to you, or to advise their friends and colleagues to work with you.
In short: Investing in onboarding and offboarding enables you to boost the productivity of your new employee while integrating him or her effectively, and to enhance the career path of your outgoing employee to make him or her a true ambassador, a spokesperson for your company.
We have developed Komin to enable an offboardee to pass on the best practices and experience he has acquired in his position directly to his successor. Komin offers a reward system in line with the new concerns of the working world, which also saves the manager time in integrating and training the onboardee.
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