Employee offboarding: Best practices, steps + checklist
Summary
Effective onboarding helps new employees find their place in the company and reduces the sense of stress that comes with starting a new job. But it's equally as disorienting to leave a job behind. And while many companies implement a robust onboarding process for new hires, some overlook the importance of offboarding when an employee decides to leave.
Offboarding is more than just saying goodbye or offering a reference. When done right, it can strengthen your employer brand, lift team morale, and give you feedback you might not get otherwise. This article explains what offboarding is, why it matters, and how to do it well.
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What is employee offboarding?
Employee offboarding is the process of helping someone leave the company when they resign, retire, or are let go. The employee and their manager work together to make sure the transition goes smoothly and ends on a good note. Common steps include:
Capturing institutional knowledge and transferring ownership of work
Conducting an exit interview to collect feedback
Fulfilling HR, legal, and IT requirements
Preparing the remaining team to redistribute responsibilities
Onboarding vs. offboarding
Onboarding helps new hires get used to their role. Offboarding is the final step, wrapping up the employee’s time at the company. Here’s a comparison of both:
Onboarding | Offboarding | |
Purpose | Welcome and integrate a new employee | Transition a departing employee out of the company |
Company assets | Distribute laptops, badges, and credit cards | Collect and return all company property |
HR coordination | Set up payroll, benefits, and system access | Process final paycheck, close benefits, and revoke access |
Training | Role-specific training and a new hire checklist | Knowledge transfer and responsibility handoff |
IT involvement | Provision accounts and software licenses | Deactivate accounts and recover equipment |
Why is employee offboarding important?
Offboarding an employee benefits everyone involved, including the employee, their team, the manager, and the company as a whole. Without a structured process, you risk losing critical knowledge, creating security gaps, and leaving a negative final impression.
Here are some main reasons why offboarding is just as important as onboarding:
Employee experience: Give employees a positive experience from their first day to their last. A good offboarding process shows that you value team members even as they leave.
Reinforces employer brand: A positive offboarding experience makes it more likely that employees will speak well of your company after they leave.
Hire back boomerang employees: Employees who leave and return to the same company are known as boomerang employees. They might have experienced burnout or need a sabbatical, and would like to return after they've had some space. An offboarding process helps them feel more comfortable coming back when it's the right fit.
Reduces security risks: Collect company devices, update passwords, and remove access to software to help prevent security issues.
Gain valuable feedback: Employees tend to be more honest when they're leaving. This is a great time to hear feedback that can truly move the needle on your team, leadership style, and organization.
7 best practices for employee offboarding
Both managers and HR share responsibility for offboarding. HR handles legal steps and paperwork, while managers support the employee during their last days. Follow these best practices to make offboarding smooth and consistent.
1. Managers, lead your employees' offboarding
As a manager, stay involved in the offboarding process just like you were during onboarding. You know the employee well, so keep supporting them through their last days at the company.
2. Capture institutional knowledge
Before they go, work with the employee to comb through their workflows. What are they currently responsible for? Make sure everything is documented and shared properly, including:
Transferring ownership of any digital information, like Google Docs or spreadsheets.
Recording all of the tasks they do on a weekly basis.
Determining who they collaborate with for projects they own.
Writing down undocumented processes or guides that they use.
3. Stay on top of administrative tasks
Like hiring, offboarding involves paperwork and admin tasks. Check with HR and legal to make sure the employee has what they need, and have HR help them finish any remaining steps. This can include:
Notifying IT of the employee's last day so they can change access to specific software.
Alerting payroll for final paychecks.
Connecting with HR to discuss benefits closure.
Getting all paperwork signed, including a letter of resignation and non-disclosure agreement, if needed.
Returning ID badges, laptops, and any other company property.
Scheduling their exit interview.
4. Collaborate on a staff announcement
Work with the employee to write a joint announcement about their departure. Let them share the news with their colleagues in a way that feels comfortable for them.
5. Set up an exit interview
Usually run by the HR department, an exit interview allows you to get meaningful feedback on the team, your managerial style, and the company as a whole. Since the employee is leaving, feedback is more likely to be honest. Exit surveys are one of the few opportunities where your company can gain insight into how to improve retention, processes, and the overall employee experience.
Sample exit interview questions:
What did you think of the onboarding/offboarding process?
How can we best support our new employees?
What growth opportunities would you have been interested in pursuing here?
What made this a positive work environment? A negative one?
Did you feel supported by your manager? Your co-workers?
What motivated you to look for a new opportunity?
What was your best day or accomplishment here? What about your worst?
6. Develop a temporary plan
If there's no new hire to replace the employee right away, you're going to need a temporary work plan to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Have the employee document their daily tasks, then review them to decide next steps:
Defer: Postpone non-urgent work until a replacement is in place.
Delegate: Temporarily assign critical tasks to other team members.
Delete: Remove unnecessary busywork that no longer needs to happen.
If this is going to be a long-term change, you might want to use change management to support the process. For example, if you're not planning to refill this position, you can use a change management strategy to come up with a plan for restructuring the team and redistributing work.
7. Hire the replacement employee
Start the hiring process for a replacement with your HR team as soon as possible. Meanwhile, use your transition plan to keep things running smoothly so you can take your time finding the right person. If you have a longer runway before the departing employee leaves, aim for an overlap period. This gives the outgoing employee time to:
Walk the new hire through key responsibilities and workflows
Introduce them to collaborators and stakeholders
Transfer ownership of projects, documents, and tools
Employee offboarding checklist
Offboarding is the last impression your employee will have of you and your company. Make it thoughtful and clear, so everyone feels comfortable before the last day.
Here's a checklist of essentials you should include in your offboarding process:
Exit interview: Schedule a meeting with HR to gather honest feedback on the employee's experience.
HR offboarding meeting: Review benefits options, final payroll, and any outstanding questions.
Asset collection: Gather all company property, including laptops, credit cards, and ID badges.
IT access revocation: Deactivate email, software licenses, and internal system access on the employee's last day.
Knowledge transfer: Document key responsibilities and reassign project and file ownership.
Final paperwork: Complete all required documents, including the resignation letter and non-disclosure agreements.
Team communication: Share a coordinated announcement about the departure with the wider team.
A reusable checklist saves you from starting over each time someone leaves. It also helps make sure you don’t miss anything, whether the departure is planned or sudden.
Automate your employee offboarding process
Less work for you means more time spent strengthening the relationship with the employee who's leaving and focusing on what your team will need in their absence. Automation reduces this work, allowing you to create a reusable offboarding process with triggers and dependencies that simplify every step.
Using a project management tool, you can build out:
Offboarding templates to use repeatedly whenever an employee leaves.
Offboarding workflows so every team member knows what they're responsible for and when they should be available during the offboarding process.
When every step is mapped out and automated, you spend less time on logistics and more time making sure your departing employee feels supported from start to finish.
Build an employee offboarding process that works
Offboarding can make the difference between an employee leaving on a neutral note or feeling hopeful about returning someday. They’ve worked hard for you, and offboarding is the last step in your working relationship. Make it meaningful. Automating your offboarding process reduces the time you spend on busywork. This way, you can stay focused on what matters most, making the best possible employee experience every step of the way.
Ready to streamline the way your team handles offboarding? Get started with Asana and build a repeatable process that keeps your team organized during every transition.
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