Remote Offboarding: Benefits, Importance, and Best Practices

In recent years, the popularity of telecommuting culture has exploded. For example, global freelance platform Upwork estimates that 22% of the American workforce will be fully remote by 2025.

This increasing number of remote workers, coupled with the globalization of today's business world, has influenced both the way we manage our teams and the way we conduct human resources management.

In the context of telecommuting, the layoff process must be designed to be equally beneficial to both the departing employee and the employer while overcoming the challenges associated with distance.

The offboarding process for telecommuting employees

Just as “onboarding” refers to the smooth and effective transition of a new, external employee into the workplace, “offboarding” is the process of employees leaving the company. This process often has to be carried out virtually as employers and employees are in different locations, sometimes even on the other side of the world.

A high-quality dismissal process aims to ensure that the relationship between employer and employee ends on good terms, while at the same time resolving any outstanding issues to permanently protect your company's legal position, finances and sensitive data.

The Importance of the Offboarding Process: 7 Key Benefits

When well thought out and carefully tailored to a remote work environment, an offboarding process can bring a number of important benefits to both your company and the well-being of your employees.

Improved employee experience: Quality offboarding ensures that your employee has a good working relationship with your company from the first day of their employment to the last. Employees who know that the offboarding process will help them rather than hinder them are likely to be happier in their work environment.
A strengthened brand image: Employees who have benefited from the offboarding process will hopefully leave your company with a positive feeling about the company. Since former employees may continue to be customers of your company, this positive attitude can have a positive impact on your brand.
A higher likelihood of the employee returning: Around 40% of workers say they would consider returning to their previous job, while human resources departments reportedly would rehire more than three-quarters of laid-off workers. A positive offboarding process increases the chances that you can welcome a former employee back to your company in the future.
Ensuring legal compliance: There are a number of reasons for employee offboarding, from layoffs, terminations and retirements to voluntary departure for personal reasons. Every single scenario has potential legal consequences for the employer. By developing a rock-solid remote offboarding process, you can ensure full compliance with international and local labor laws, thereby avoiding potentially costly litigation.
Reduced risk to company security: Employees often need access to sensitive information, records, workplace applications and even finances during their employment. Offboarding minimizes the risks that former employees pose to company security by removing them from access to these areas before their last day of work.
An opportunity to improve company structure and performance: Exit interviews and knowledge transfer - two key aspects of any offboarding process - can provide you with the information you need to continually improve your company's operations and remote work environment, which in turn contributes to higher productivity and better well-being of employees.
Streamlining the process of hiring a new employee: Effective employee onboarding provides for a smooth transition of the departing employee's workload, either to a new employee or by redistributing the work, acquired knowledge and experience among the remaining team members. This ensures that there is minimal disruption to the team's productivity and the customer's deadlines can still be met.

9 Best Practices for an Effective Remote Offboarding Process

Now that we've explained why it's so important to develop an effective remote offboarding process for your company or HR department, let's discuss nine best practices you should incorporate into your individual plan.

1.Invest the same amount of time and resources in offboarding as you do in onboarding

Offboarding is a valuable process that can help companies create a more efficient, inclusive and supportive work environment, which has a long-term positive impact on company performance and hopefully revenue. To ensure you get the most out of your offboarding process, you should.

2.Understand the cultural, legal and compliance nuances of offboarding international employees

Working with remote, global employees can present various challenges to your HR team, not least the intricacies of offboarding these employees. Cultural expectations, legal obligations and other international compliance issues - such as taxes and payroll - can vary drastically from country to country. Therefore, it is important that you are aware of these differences and how to work around them before implementing your offboarding process.

3.Leverage the experience and knowledge of your employees

One of the most beneficial aspects of any offboarding process, whether remote or on-site, is the opportunity to leverage your departing employee's experience and institutional knowledge. Have your employee create a handover document that describes how they organize their daily tasks, how they complete them efficiently, and what else they know about how to best perform their role in the company.

4.Work with your employee to communicate their departure to the rest of the company.

Honesty is always the best policy when it comes to corporate communications, especially when communications need to span geographic distances and time zones. Whatever the reason for your employee's departure, an effective offboarding strategy should include clear and understanding communication with the rest of the workforce.

5.Create an administrative checklist

There is no denying that there is a lot of work involved in offboarding, especially remote offboarding, in order to make the process smooth and effective. It may sound simple, but creating an administrative checklist will help you keep track of all the paperwork and steps that need to be completed. For example, a remote offboarding checklist could be: contain the following points:

Removing the employee's access to the company's internal system and files
Processing the employee's final paycheck, including employee contributions
Return company equipment (laptop, phone, etc.) to the employee
Complete and file all required documentation for the employee's departure
Informing the rest of the team about the employee's departure
Schedule an exit interview with a selected employee

6.Schedule an exit interview remotely

An exit interview is your chance to gather valuable information from departing employees about their experiences with you, your management team, and your company. Given the many challenges that need to be overcome to ensure that remote employees feel included and supported by your company, this is an excellent opportunity to uncover weaknesses in your company structure and work environment so that you can improve them in the future.

7.Secure your company’s sensitive information

Before your employee's last day of work, an offboarding strategy should include a comprehensive removal of the employee's access to your company's sensitive information. This includes revoking access to:

Company email
The company's database
The company's customer list, leads or call history
Any third party accounts used by Company

Depending on the nature of your work and the employee's role within your company, you may also need to require them to sign certain disclosure and/or non-compete agreements.

8.Develop a transition plan for a new employee and/or a temporary staffing plan

To ensure that your team does not have to take on the workload of the departing team member, an effective remote offboarding process should include a transition plan to transfer the departing employee's workload to a new employee - whom the departing employee may even be able to onboard - or redistributed to the team if they are able to take on the workload.

9.Send a farewell package and arrange a final call to say goodbye to the team

Offboarding usually includes a farewell party for the departing employee. However, when offboarding remotely, saying goodbye becomes much more difficult. Instead, schedule a farewell meeting with the employee's team and put together a farewell package that can be delivered to the employee's home.

Conclusion

Offboarding remote employees comes with some challenges and site-specific nuances, but with a carefully designed offboarding process tailored to each unique scenario, it can ultimately be huge for both your company and the well-being of your departing employees be useful.

Effective remote offboarding is crucial for seamless transitions and maintaining positive relationships. With IceHrm's support, ensure a smooth exit process for departing employees.