Enhanced Employee Exit Process Through Automation

The employee exit process is not an easy task. When an employee leaves, the HR team has to ensure the stability of the organisational process while carrying out the exit process. This can be laborious and difficult to manage. So, what is an effective solution that can aid in managing everything for the HR team?

An automated employee exit process is an ideal way to practice effective offboarding to make it seamless in the entire organization. Read more on the employee exit process and automation’s impact on it here.

What is the Employee Exit Process?

The employee exit process is the organizational process of offboarding employees. The exit process for employees entails all the procedural steps involved in the relieving process of an employee from the organization. This formal process of separating an employee from the organization involves everything from administrative tasks to formalities like knowledge transfer, spotless departure, and avoiding any disruption in the organizational functioning during the process.

The idea of such a process is not to destabilize the other ongoing processes of the company. Just like other HR-based processes like recruitment, employee onboarding, and training, an employee exit process is a crucial part of human resource management. Research has shown that around 71% of organizations do not have a formalized process of employee offboarding.

Moreover, having a process makes it easy to manage and gives a pleasant experience to the employees who are ending their employment in the current organization. It also makes the relieving process systematic and consistent and finishes the process smoothly.

The employee exit procedure is where the HR manager collects all the employee’s belongings given by the company and also finalizes all the outstanding payments. This ensures that the process is done professionally and no legal consequences arise after the processing. The process becomes complete by providing the employee with a letter of recommendation to help them find their next job easily.

No Employee Exit Process? You Might Face These Challenges

Before getting to know why organizations need such a process, looking at what will happen in the absence of it will help understand its necessity better. In a general sense, when an employee decides to leave, the organization will have to deal with the following things –

• Inconsistent offboarding leading to delays and disruptions
• Have to take measures to avoid jeopardy of company reputation
• Transfer knowledge effectively and faster
• Take care of all the legal documentation
• Handle all the emotional complexities

Employee Exit Process Saves You. Know How.

Handling all these can be a complex task and if not attended to, can cost the company a lot. This is why a process like employee exit plays a key role in offboarding. So, why should an organization have an employee exit process? Here are the reasons why.

• It expedites the process to have a smooth change, minimizing the impact that it creates on the organization’s work.
• The exit process facilitates the continuous flow of knowledge as there is time for the relieving employee to impart the knowledge and train a replacement for their role.
• A feedback form can be included in the process using which feedback can be collected from the outgoing employees regarding their experience. Using this information all the future exit processes can be optimized.

The companies that do not practice the employee exit process will lack in these categories. Moreover, by implementing offboarding policies, companies have experienced better performance, growth, employee engagement, and retention.

Improving the Competence of the Employee Exit Process

Having an employee exit process might make the exiting process easy, however, manually doing such a long and tedious task is a chore. Remember, the more seamless and comfortable the process is for the exiting employee, the more value and reputation are earned. So, how can HR professionals simplify this complex and inevitable process, suiting both employees and the company?

Employee Exit Process Automation

Automating the process using workflow automation software will improve its proficiency by removing all the redundant nature of the tasks. In order to understand the impact of an automation tool on the exit process, a step-by-step analysis of the process and how it helps can guide us to decipher why it is a prerequisite.

Steps in the Employee Exit Process

A Standard Operating Procedure for the employee exit process is a crucial element as it acts as a roadmap for the HR manager to carry out the process. In this long offboarding process, how can automation play a key role? Important statistics denote that around 32% of the companies in the US have partially automated their offboarding process. Moreover, 5% have fully automated. Let us understand how automation saves the process step-by-step.

Step 1 – Notification

The employee exit process is initiated when the employee notifies their supervisor and HR about their decision to be relieved from their job. Eventually, all the arrangements for the exit process are planned accordingly.

How Automation Can Help?

Having a workflow can help the employee who has decided to exit initiate a workflow. Automatically. Automatically, all the concerned people will be part of the automated workflow.

Step 2 – Manage the Resignation

Once the employee informs about his resignation, it is important to manage this resignation formally and professionally. All these steps of the process have to be documented. At this stage, the resignation of the employee is accepted to begin the termination process.

The key stakeholders from legal, IT, operations, payroll, and senior management are informed about this initiation. Additionally, after discussing with the employee and their manager, the clients will be informed.

How Automation Can Help?

Automating this step helps the HR team to manage resignations professionally. All the people can be informed automatically once the letter has been accepted by the HR manager.

Step 3 – Paperwork and Documentation

Following the relieving protocol, certain paperwork and documentation for the offboarding process. The documentation process includes the updation of the employee records, initiating the find paychecks, and setting up benefits termination. Here the resignation letter will be collected from the employee. If it is an involuntary termination, it should also be documented.

Remember, the letter must entail the following details –

• That the resignation letter is voluntary (if they are not terminated)
• The last day of employment

How Automation Can Help?

Forms can be created with the workflow, where the resigning employee can fill in all the details. Additionally, all the necessary documents can be uploaded by the concerned employee to go forward with the process. This particularly saves up a lot of time.

Step 4 – Communicate the Employee Exit Internally and Externally

Once all the necessary documents have been updated, the employee’s departure must be announced both internally and externally. This helps in reducing rumors spreading. In case the employee is leaving as a manager or a person in a higher position, all the clients and shareholders must be informed.

To communicate this news, a short, informative email can be sent with all the details such as –

• The reason behind the employee leaving
• Their last working day
• Whether a replacement has been found.

Moreover, additional details have to be provided to the employees such as –

• How the processes will be filled until a replacement is found
• The impact of the departure on the team
• Ways in the team will require support
• What will the handover process entail

Certain details have to be sent to the employee’s client in an email. The details are as follows –

• Will the employee be sending an email?
• Ask if it is appropriate to set a meeting with the client
• Areas of discussion
• Who will be taking over the role and account
• What kind of support will be provided to the client

How Automation Can Help?

With automation, automated emails can be sent to all the employees, clients, and stakeholders at the same time. This automated mail can be filled with details that the concerned person team has to know. The benefit is that the HR manager and team do not have to take the burden of informing every team inside and outside the organization

Step 5 – Transfer of Knowledge

Knowledge transfer is an important stage in the employee exit management process. The relieving employee needs to transfer all the knowledge to the next person who is taking up the role. Knowledge transfer helps in orienting the new employee to continue doing the job the same way. The transfer can be achieved through training sessions, documentation, or shadowing opportunities.

Various steps can be taken to achieve a seamless knowledge transfer –

• Ask the employee to create a list of current tasks
• Discuss the daily, weekly, monthly, and even annual responsibilities
• Get the team members to cross-check the list

How Automation Can Help?

The exiting and the replacing employees do not have to be in the same place physically with automation. All the necessary trainer sessions can be scheduled as well as conducted easily using an automation tool.

Step 6 – IT Access and Security

This is the stage where the HR team works with the IT department to revoke all the access the employees have to the systems and all the company assets are collected back. This is done to ensure data security. No sensitive information or data will be breached. This is how companies must uphold and maintain the integrity of all their digital assets.

Steps that can be taken are –

• Have a list of the assets given to the employees
• Have a checklist of all the accounts, platforms, and servers the employee has access
• Inform the IT department to disable or deactivate all access from all networks and technologies with proper timelines

How Automation Can Help?

The IT team can be wired into the workflow at this specific stage where, as soon as they receive the request, start working on it. This way the process is well integrated and streamlined.

Step 7 – Arrange Final Payment and Benefits

When all the transactions are complete between the employee and organization, one final settlement is the giving of the final payment and benefits. This step becomes easy by using HR software. The complete process can be automated and all payments and benefits can be processed up-to-date.

Without an automation solution, the processing will have to be carried out through tedious paperwork. Using this tool, data regarding leave accrued, benefits due, outstanding salary due, and pension, is readily available.

How Automation Can Help?

Payments can be made easily through invoice approval workflow where the approvals can be acquired faster. The approvers will be sent reminder emails making the approvals consistent and quicker.

Step 8 – Discuss Binding Agreements

Based on the organizational type and its operations, binding agreements have to be revived at this stage. All the contracts and non-disclosure agreements that were signed have to be reviewed to check whether everything aligns legally. Remember to involve the legal department in the process. At this stage, all the employees’ queries must be addressed.

How Automation Can Help?

Binding agreements can be regulated through compliance automation. The complete process can be automated and streamlined using workflow automation, making the process seamless and simplified.

Step 9 – Exit Interview

The final stage is where the exit interview is conducted. The employee exit interview is a confidential meeting between HR and the exiting employee. An exit interview will allow collecting feedback from the employee and gaining insights. The employee can be asked about their impressions of the company, their experience with the teams, and their general experience of working. During this interview, the HR team can assess their exit checklist to check whether they have missed any important procedure.

Ideal things to do in an exit interview are –

• No other colleague must be part of this meeting apart from the HR
• Make sure the employee knows that this meeting is confidential
• Document all the information shared by the employee

How Automation Can Help?

Once the exit process is over, feedback can be collected through automated forms generated using a workflow management tool.

Employee Exit Process Checklist

Employee offboarding checklist is a key element of the process that navigates it. As a long process involving multiple departments, tasks can go unchecked. Therefore, it is ideal to have an employee exit process checklist ensuring the right conduction of the process. So, what goes inside this checklist?

Why Following an Employee Exit Process Checklist is Ideal?

For employees, reasons can be many for relieving a position. Moreover, the employee exit process is a good opportunity to enhance the reputation of the organization. Having an employee exit process gives an ideal and systematic way to go forward with the process. Here is how it benefits the organization.

Provide Valuable Insights

The offboarding process allows interviewing with the employee through which insightful information can be gathered. The information can be about their thoughts about the company, employees, culture, operations, etc. Using this data improvement strategies can be easily developed.

Reaffirms the Company Culture

With new improvement plans, a better experience can be provided to the employees nurturing a good culture. Moreover, improvements can cater to providing a more elaborate and enhanced exit process, showing other employees how they will be treated.

Enables Smooth Handover

Having a checklist negates all disruptions caused to the functioning of the organization. The workforce will be notified at the right time about their co-worker’s departure, giving all necessary details. This eliminates the unnecessary spreading of rumors and discussions.

Signals Employee Value

Employees do return to the same organization once they leave. This happens when they are treated right when they are here. Having systematic processes for dealing with human resources impacts the preferences of the employees.

Builds Brand Reputation

Employees become the brand advocators of your company. Most of these employees will continue to support and advocate for the company bringing in a good brand image. Therefore, it is highly recommended to make a good impact on them during the employee exit clearance process.

Provides a Process

As mentioned earlier, an effective, systematic, standardized process transforms effectiveness. It ensures all the steps have been taken without any disruptions. A process will protect it from having any legal or security consequences.

Best Practices in the Employee Exit Process

1. Understand the Nature of the Exit

The offboarding of an employee can have varying causes and complications associated with it. Sometimes the same process will not suffice for all employees. For different types of exit (layoff, resignation, contractual, layoff), the offboarding process can have its own flavor. Hence, understanding the nature of the exit is essential.

2. Plan Ahead

Once the employee resignation letter is in your hands, the process and the necessary items must be planned. This is why a defined employee entry and exit process is highly important.

3. Maintain Open Communication

While communicating with the exiting employee, it is highly necessary to be open and free with them. Such an environment will make things for the employees to openly communicate.

4. Retrieve Insights

The future offboarding experiences are sharp and effective with the proper insights gained from the exit interview. This is an opportunity to improve the organizational working as well.

5. Provide Support and Resources

Offering support and all necessary resources at the time of offboarding. This can be done through career counseling, placement help, providing recommendation letters, etc. This will give a positive impression to the employee.

6. Protect Confidentiality

Both professional and personal information of the employee must be protected at all costs. Privacy is important even if the employee is leaving the job.

7. Ensure Compliance

Compliance is an important factor and regulating it is difficult especially when an employee is resigning from a position. If not done carefully, it can bring huge security risks to the company.

8. Use an Automation Tool

As discussed in the earlier section, automation changes the face of the process by removing all inefficiencies. Automated employee exit processes impact the employee experience on a deeper level.

Tips for Effectively Deal with Exiting Employees

• Be authentic
• Remain professional throughout the process
• Have proper communication before revoking any access of the employee
• Show appreciation to the employee
• Start to look for a replacement as soon as the resignation letter is received.

Automating Employee Offboarding With Cflow

Cflow is a no-code workflow automation platform best for automating complex processes. The ultimate goal of this automation software is to bring maximum efficiency and productivity. All the necessary roles required in the process can be mapped into the streamlined workflow seamlessly, making the process faster. Cflow is the best tool that can optimize your business processes and improve their potential.

Important features –

• With workflow creation and important features, the complete exit process can be mapped into a workflow that can be accessed by all the concerned entities in the organization.
• Any non-technical person can build a workflow from scratch. The visual workflow builder involves zero code where any type of fields, process steps, and workflow rules can be built to carry out the process.
• The platform provides pre-built, customizable workflow templates helping the users transform the process into a standard one
• Causing no delays, the routing and notification system sends automated reminder emails and messages, pushing the employee to consistently work on it. This ensures the continuous flow of work giving no scope for delays.
• The powerful reports and analytics features allow the users to understand how the processes work, give deeper insights, and make data-driven decisions.
• Cflow can automate almost all the business processes. Some of these processes include Procurement, Capex Approvals, AR/AP Processing, Purchase Process Automation, Tender Process Automation, Incident Management Process, and much more.

Conclusion

Having a defined framework and an exit process checklist will not suffice to bring in efficiency to the process. The employee exit process is one where manual involvement cannot be completely negated. Hence, to complete the involvement, the process has to be optimized. 

Cflow does an amazing job at this. Cfllow’s automation solution can remove all limitations making the process proficient. To book a free trial, sign up now on Cflow.