Parting Ways Pleasantly; As Layoffs Persist, Employers Embrace Offboarding Procedures, Services To ‘Focus On The Humane Side’
Copyright 2009 SourceMedia, Inc.All Rights Reserved <span id="x_hitDiv1">Employee <span id="x_hitDiv1">Benefit News <br> <br> <span id="x_hitDiv2">June 2009 <br> <br> QUALITY OF LIFE; Pg. 30 Vol. 23 No. 8 <br> <br> 851 words <br> <br> <br> Parting ways pleasantly; As layoffs persist, employers embrace offboarding procedures, services to 'focus on the humane side'<br> <br> Elizabeth Galentine <br> <br> <p></p> What do companies such as Citigroup, Nike and Wells Fargo have in common? They've all embraced offboarding. A converse to the more commonplace practice of onboarding employees, offboarding is gaining traction as a necessary HR function while recession-struck businesses continue to downsize. <p></p> Because offboarding - conducting exit interviews, removing access to company property and other services - is largely reversing the process implemented in onboarding, it's a natural progression, says Teresa Grote, practice director of composite solutions for Ascendum, an information technology company. <p></p> "I think that in our highly litigious society today, making sure that you go through proper offboarding is probably equally, if not more, important than proper onboarding," she says. <p></p> Betsy Johnson, a labor and employment attorney with Epstein Becker & Green in Los Angeles, emphasizes the point. "Layoffs are not just about saving money," she says. "It's also about avoiding hidden costs that could far exceed what you're saving in the layoffs and could trigger legal liability of you don't do it right." <p></p> Because there is "a ton of risk" in the employee termination process, it is important to establish a fair and uniform process to handle employees leaving the company, says Deborah Rosen, senior vice president with Global 360, whose clients include Citigroup, Nike and Wells Fargo. Assuring the procedure is uniform by utilizing an offboarding program with automated checklists and best-practice exit interview questions helps to mitigate that risk. <p></p> Because there are many things that need to happen when offboarding an employee, the process can be a destabilizing drag on productivity for employers, says Dave Karel, vice president of product marketing for SuccessFactors, which includes offboarding as one of its five Business Performance Accelerators. <p></p> An Ascendum customer, Christophe Louvion, VP of innovation for the comparison shopping Web site Shopzilla, shares on Ascendum's Web site that "Shopzilla's new process infrastructure supports the automation of a variety of manual and paper-based processes that tended to slip through the cracks." <p></p> One of the most significant components of offboarding is the exit interview, which many software programs offer in a customizable computer questionnaire. "It is the point in a relationship between employee and company where you have an opportunity to get the most candid feedback from an employee that an organization can leverage to improve itself," says Karel. "If you can collect that and then route this information to the right people, you can really take this company into new directions." <p></p> This streamlining lets executives "focus on the humane side of what is certainly an uncomfortable situation," Rosen says. <p></p> Some are taking offboarding a step further by bringing in a benefits consultant to meet with former employees. Dan Mulheran, a principal with The KNW Group in Minnesota, says the financial and insurance services company will take all of the responsibility to deal with a terminated employee. Either as part of KNW's existing contract with an employer or on a fee basis, the ex-employee is referred to KNW to discuss replacement of benefits. <p></p> "If he's got his 401(k), we're helping him set up an IRA. If he's got health care, we're helping him either establish his COBRA relationship or establish the individual medical plan for himself or his family members. If he's got a disability program, we can help him with replacing that with an individual disability policy," says Mulheran. <p></p> Some who are well-versed in their benefits will say "thanks, but no thanks" to the service, but others "are extremely appreciative and very happy that someone has reached out on their behalf and said, 'I'm here to help you with your needs,'" says Mulheran. <p></p> Because they are usually managing an employer's current benefit programs, KNW is familiar with what the ex-employee had and what they may need in the interim between jobs, Mulheran adds. <p></p> For those employers who would like to see laid-off employees back in the fold after the economy turns around, instituting an offboarding procedure can help ensure that "it's been a respectful experience that hopefully leaves the employee a net promoter of the company," says Karel. <p></p> Nobscot Corporation, an online exit interview program, allows employers to tag high performers with whom they would like to keep in contact. "It's a neat little module we added a couple of years ago when we were starting to see that whole rebounding was really working well for companies," says Beth Carvin, founder and CEO. "Bringing employees back, they know the culture, and it's easy for them to assimilate once they realize that the other job wasn't so great." <p></p> Rosen illustrates the importance of maintaining a good public image with "the 12 strangers litmus test," a philosophy she learned from a customer. How would 12 people completely unfamiliar with an employer's termination process judge the procedure? "If you can improve the process of actually offboarding an employee," she says, "that employee feels they've been treated fairly." <br> <br> <a href="http://www.ebn.benefitnews.com/">http://www.ebn.benefitnews.com/</a> <br> <br> June 15, 2009 <br> <br> <div> <div class="x_nshr"> <center></center> <center><a href="http://www.lexis-nexis.com/lncc/about/copyrt.html" target="_new" class="x_pagelinks">Copyright © 2009 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved. </a><br> <a href="http://www.lexis-nexis.com/terms/general" target="_new" class="x_pagelinks">Terms and Conditions</a> <a href="http://www.lexis-nexis.com/terms/privacy" target="_new" class="x_pagelinks"> Privacy Policy</a> <br> </center> </div> </div> </span></span></span>
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