Smooth Transitions: Creating an Effective Offboarding Checklists

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Saying goodbye to a team member is NEVER easy.

Immediately, you dread what will happen the next few weeks after the "Hasta-la-vista, baby". You picture yourself finding and training a new hire once again. You may even have a couple of sleepless nights worrying that the 'leaver' will set your workplace on fire.

To prevent bad exits from happening and maybe even allow you a good night's sleep, a proper offboarding process can be observed by using an effective offboarding checklist.

Why?

As you part ways, a checklist allows both parties to be on good terms before the leaving date.

Imagine this checklist as a ticket to their final performance, with each item creating a positive offboarding experience for the company, you, and your current stakeholders.

That's why we've created this article to guide you in navigating the best way to establish a smooth transition process during the departure of a client, an employee, or a customer!

Ready to face the offboarding process with confidence? Let's dive in!

Are Smooth Transitions Significant for an Agency?

For team sports and stage plays, imagine one of the players or actors switching roles or going MIA without any heads-up. It sucks, right? The same goes for an agency. Smooth transitions fill the gap, so there's no mid-game pause or awkward silence during the play.

Like a project management checklist, it's always a good idea to utilize an 'exit' checklist because we ensure business as usual despite the changes and movement in the workforce: the show must go on for the rest of the team without creating a negative impact on both the operations and business culture.

An offboarding checklist for agencies and independent contractors also helps mitigate potential risks and challenges. For example, say a former employee didn't surrender the company laptop, or worse, charged their retirement vacay to company credit cards. The accounting, HR, and IT teams will go gaga if they find out after the person leaves.

Likewise, without a proper offboarding checklist, a freelancer might lose the opportunity to acquire a potentially long-lasting partnership with a client.

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Understanding the Diverse Stakeholders for the Different Offboarding Checklists

Before listing the items for a team member's departure, it is essential to learn the different stakeholders in the agency and the important elements to consider when crafting an offboarding checklist.

Employees

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), effective personnel management involves managing changes that an organization needs, including letting people go. One of the key elements of an employee offboarding process is the exit interview, where we gather information about why they are leaving, whether they would consider returning to the company, and what management's areas of improvement could be.

Honest feedback during the exit interview identifies employee satisfaction level, met and unmet expectations, and insights regarding the business collaboration processes, organizational structure, and company culture.

Contractors and freelancers

When it comes to non-permanent personnel, it is essential to tailor the offboarding checklists according to the services they provide, the evaluation of the roles they perform in our organization, and the business tasks dependent on these roles. A smooth and respectful transition with your temporary workforce ensures a long-lasting positive relationship even after the contract has ended.

Clients and customers

As consumers, don't we always want to be treated like kings and queens even after we complete our purchase? Healthy client and customer offboarding is done by managing exits gracefully. It may hurt to lose a patron you've taken care of from the start. Still, when we focus on executing a proper offboarding checklist, we establish how we are as a company and preserve our business reputation.

We'll also be the first thing on their minds when asked for recommendations. Who knows? Our transparency and final positive impression might win them back later on. Remember, a five-star treatment today fosters outstanding collaborations tomorrow.

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Crafting an Inclusive Offboarding Checklist

YES – Even if it's a nasty surprise, we need to accept the employee's voluntary resignation, congratulate them, and thank them for giving us time to prepare for their departure. Let them know we value their contribution and guide them on what's next to facilitate a smooth transition.

Now that we know the various stakeholders, we can start creating our offboarding checklist. No matter the type of 'leaver' involved, an inclusive checklist has these general elements:

1. Documentation and paperwork

It may be the most tedious part of the offboarding process, but it is the most rewarding when finally completed. Most of the paperwork we need to handle involves the HR department, like copies of non-disclosure or non-competition agreements signed and completed medical and unemployment insurance forms.

Another set of documents that our line manager might require includes any learning system the person has established during their tenure. This covers the overview of our daily tasks, priority duties, ad hoc responsibilities, and a list of internal and external people we have worked with.

2. IT and access protocols

System access should be revoked before the stakeholder's last day to protect company assets like business trade secrets, prevent possible data security breaches, and reduce technical risk. Make sure all company property, such as keys, keycards, laptops, and mobile phones are surrendered and turned over to the IT department before their end date.

3. Stakeholder-specific considerations

Although the first two parts are general and standard with most businesses, stakeholder-specific considerations require customized offboarding checklist items to help facilitate a smooth transition.

Unique Aspects for Employee Exit

Knowledge transfer is a must during the departing employee's offboarding process. Tasks that the outgoing employee performs more productively, valuable tips for automating an operation process, and their outstanding workload are only some information for handover to the successor or the line manager.

Training sessions to preserve client relations and institutional knowledge are equally crucial for senior-level leavers. These apprenticeship lessons ensure we have another person to help us if we miss key information after the exiting employee leaves.

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Unique Aspects for Client Offboarding

For other stakeholders, adding specifics in the offboarding checklist ensures that we conclude the business relationship professionally. Holding a closure meeting to finalize all deliverables and go over contractual obligations helps us answer any final questions and address any concerns they might still have.

Ask for feedback on the working experience and conduct post-offboarding check-ups to see if they are pleased with how the transition was handled. Lastly, make sure to secure client information and other confidential arrangements to observe proper data privacy.

Tools and Resources for Offboarding Checklists

But how are we going to conquer all the overwhelming information every time someone leaves?

Using technology to establish a collaborative learning management system will help us streamline the varied offboarding processes.

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Technology and software recommendations

Here are some of the platforms today that will help make our offboarding plan easier:

• The Scaletime project management checklist helps us delegate and manage outstanding work, let everyone on the team know the progress and deadlines, and organize and collaborate on team activities.
• Document management for offboarding paperwork and handover. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or Dropbox lets you categorize the documents while collaborating with the leaver.
• For remote exit interviews, videoconferencing with recording, such as Zoom, can also be used.
• Password sharing to business cloud access and relevant documents can also be organized using secured platforms like LastPass.
• If there is no company database, we can use HR software like BambooHR and Zenefits to manage the departing employee's data, offboarding tasks, and benefits administration.
• Utilizing legal help like Rocket Lawyer to access legal resources ensures that we observe employment laws during offboarding.

Confused about which ones to include? Try our prioritization matrix to help you select focus activities.

Importance of templates for checklists for various stakeholders

Make the future offboarding of employees smooth sailing by optimizing the process. Although not all exit scenarios are the same, an offboarding checklist template is a comprehensive guide to standardize the procedure and prevent missed steps.

Notion allows us to create a knowledge base for sharing essential information, like creating an offboarding checklist template. This is helpful when we have tips to make a task easier or special arrangements we may have, particularly with a client and customer.

Typeform and Jotform can be used for customized data gathering for exit surveys and client feedback forms. We can fully personalize these forms to the type of information we need to ensure the leaver's final company experience is stress-free.

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Best Practices for a Seamless Offboarding Process

Ready to give it a go? Here are a few more BONUS tips and best practices to make the offboarding checklist the most effective approach for leavers:

Communication strategies

Don't you just hate workplace rumors? They happen when a resigning team member suddenly packs up their stuff from the office. Internal communication plans should be made to limit rumors, keep everyone in the loop of what's happening, and shush the office drama away.

External communication guidelines, on the other hand, prevent us from ghosting our customers. Introducing the successor as soon as possible gives us time to address immediate client concerns for client-facing roles. We don't want clients pulling out their accounts and saying, "Where's John?" or "I only transact with Sarah" after the employee has left.

Timing and planning

The line manager's role is also essential to keeping open communication, establishing a timeline, and preparing for unexpected circumstances during offboarding. It prepares through institutional knowledge transfer, emotional preparedness, improved leaver well-being, and positive organizational image.

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Let's Sum It Up!

Here's a quick recap:

• Smooth transitions are essential for agencies to ensure business as usual while mitigating risks and challenges.
• By understanding the diverse needs of various stakeholders, we respect individual experiences and promote equity and fairness during the offboarding process.
• Crafting an offboarding checklist does not only involve an exit interview. Proper documentation, discontinuing IT access and company property, and other stakeholder-specific considerations should be observed.
• We can ensure a smooth transition by using different tools and resources to assist us and make the departure hassle-free for all.
• Effective offboarding communication, timing, and planning strategies in place, like an offboarding checklist template, establish enhanced employee and client relationships even after the exiting employee leaves.

Not all stakeholders undergo the same onboarding procedure, so the same goes for counting down your employee's last day. It's essential to craft an inclusive checklist proactively to ensure all stakeholders are covered.

Curious about how easily we delegate off-boarding tasks and check in on the progress of each stakeholder involved? Scaletime's Project Management Checklist works wonders whether you're a thriving organization, a budding company, or a small business. Discover more about hassle-free process optimization by getting in touch with us today!