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Graceful Goodbyes: How Employee Offboarding Shapes Organizational Success

Saying goodbye isn’t always easy. An employee’s voluntary or involuntary exit can be an emotional and operationally challenging time for the management, colleagues, and everyone else involved. However, organizations can turn employee offboarding into а smooth and constructive process with proper planning and execution. Gruber (2023) explored the importance of an effective offboarding strategy and found that it maintains positive relationships, facilitates knowledge sharing, protects data security, and enhances productivity. Through this article, let’s explore the best practices that HR teams can follow to master smooth employee offboarding. What is employee offboarding? Employee offboarding (aka exit management) refers to the process of transitioning departing employees out of an organization. The process encapsulates the administrative, technical, and interpersonal steps when an employee decides to quit their company. Offboarding is parallel to onboarding, which welcomes new hires. Both onboarding and offboarding have equal significance in an employee’s journey. A good start must end with a good end. A welcoming onboarding creates a healthy relationship between the manager and the new hire, enhances confidence, and helps employees feel more committed to the work. Similarly, a structured employee offboarding often results in engaged alumni, productive teams, prevented security risks, and an improved employee brand. Why do we need employee offboarding? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average turnover rate in the year 2023 was 21%. In 2022, it was 47%, and in 2021, it was 47%, meaning that since 2021, employees are resigning at a higher rate. Organizations fail to afford […]