Offboarding checklist for structured exit management
The first impression is crucial. But the last is no less important. Employees who leave the company should therefore be supported just as professionally as new employees. With structured offboarding, you leave a positive impression even on departing employees and turn them into brand ambassadors for your company. In this guide, you will receive a free template with which you can create your individual offboarding checklist and ensure a professional offboarding experience.
What is an offboarding checklist? And why do I need it?
Why is a checklist important?
Checklists are excellent for ensuring that no important steps are forgotten when implementing a process. In particular, a checklist should be used if the process is easy to standardize and tasks are repeated regularly. The offboarding of departing employees, like onboarding, is largely the same, which is why using a checklist is also recommended for exit management.
What does the offboarding checklist contain?
Conveniently, an offboarding checklist is created in the form of checkboxes. These can simply be ticked off as soon as a task has been completed. Supervisors and HR managers can see at a glance which activities have already been completed and which are still outstanding.
The offboarding checklist consists of numerous tasks, most of which can be applied to all companies. Other tasks must be added specifically for individual companies. It is helpful to group tasks according to individual offboarding phases. This ensures greater clarity and provides information about the current priority, so that those involved can always concentrate on the important tasks in stressful everyday life.
The format in which you create your offboarding checklists does not matter at first. As a rule, companies use simple Excel files or PDF documents. In the course of digitalization, however, digital offboarding solutions are also becoming increasingly popular for this task, with which offboarding can be made more transparent and automated. This saves you additional time and costs in offboarding.
Template for your offboarding checklist
Our template for offboarding contains all the important tasks involved in the offboarding of employees in companies. We have already assigned them to the individual phases of offboarding for you. The individual phases are:
- Week of termination
- 2 weeks before the last working day
- Last working week
- Last working day
- Time after retirement
Week after termination
- Prepare paperwork: First, make sure that the termination has been received or handed over correctly and that the responsible persons have been instructed to prepare important documents such as employment references or references.
- Formalities: Clarify important organizational questions. e.g. what vacation entitlement still exists, what results from this as the last working day and what outstanding payments the employee is still entitled to.
- Communication: Inform the direct colleagues about the termination. This allows them to get an early picture of which tasks need to be taken over and in which areas a detailed handover is necessary.
- Plan the replacement: Discuss with the supervisor whether a replacement is necessary and prepare the recruiting process.
- Offboarding checklist for employees: Start the offboarding process on the employee's side and hand out a corresponding offboarding checklist with to-dos.
2 weeks before the last working day
- Plan remaining time: Plan the remaining days together (HR, employee, supervisor, etc.). When should the remaining vacation be taken, which specialist tasks should still be participated in, how should outstanding payments be processed, etc.
- Start knowledge transfer: Make sure that the transfer of knowledge has been discussed and coordinated with all parties involved and that a corresponding process is initiated.
- Communication: Inform all other specialist departments about the departure of the employee. Also show ways in which contact between employees and the company can be maintained after the departure.
Last working week
- Knowledge & data transfer: Make sure that the handover is completed and that there is enough time to answer any open questions. At the same time, all documents should now also be transferred from private storage to central company networks and important correspondence and account access should be handed over to the supervisor or colleagues.
- Exit interviews: The last week also provides a suitable setting for final official discussions. The offboarding interview with the HR department is a good opportunity to gather feedback from employees on the offboarding process and the company in general. On the other hand, the employee review with the supervisor can provide helpful input on opportunities for improvement in the specialist department or internal communication.
Last working day
- Documents: Check whether all documents are correctly signed and stamped and hand over all documents.
- Technical Offboarding: As part of technical offboarding, take back the equipment and work materials previously handed out and document the return accordingly.
- Concluding the handover: Double-check together that all contacts and account accesses have been transferred and block the individual accesses to software and web services.
After last working day
- Communication: Inform important external contacts (partners, customers, etc.) about the departure and, if necessary, introduce the successor.
- IT review: Make sure that all accesses have been transferred and blocked.
- Update information: Update all relevant locations (internal wiki, organizational chart, etc.). Use the feedback from the discussions to optimize your offboarding concept.
- Continue using equipment: Inventory returned devices & furniture and ensure that they are reused effectively or, if necessary, disposed of or sold.
