Every employee will resign at some point. However, an effective handover can mitigate the loss of experience and knowledge. Taking the time to set up a handover process ensures the replacement can hit the ground running.
Offboarding is the process of closing employment. Every company should have an offboarding process, as it protects both them and the leaver during the transition of separation.
Yet, even when offboarding processes are in place, a handover is often overlooked. Many factors contribute to this. However, the most common reason is the leaver taking their annual leave during the notice period.
Employee turnover is part of running a company. Of course, looking after your staff can increase employee retention, but sometimes employees decide to move on.
When an employee hands in their notice, their manager is often responsible for offboarding, which is typically a race against the clock as most notice periods are just 4 weeks long.
While retaining all of the employee’s experience is impossible, a thorough handover can help an organisation set up its new starter for success.
Follow these steps to ensure a smooth transition.
How much an employee is willing to pass the torch on to the next person depends on how they feel towards the business. Employees who've had a positive experience are far more likely to be ready and willing to participate in a handover. In fact, they will probably feel responsible for ensuring a smooth transition.
A handover isn't just about detailing the day-to-day responsibilities of the job. It goes a lot deeper than that. When a person has spent a long time in a role, they will undoubtedly have their own way of doing things that can make the job much easier. Perhaps they have a great relationship with another person in a different department who they go to first when they need help. Or, they know about a little-known feature in an analytics tool that is better suited to how the business uses data. Either way, distilling that hands-on experience is just as important as going through the job spec.
Every organisation has different rules on when to share an employee's resignation. Moreover, the timing also depends on other factors, such as seniority and influence. More often than not, letting people know an employee is leaving before their replacement arrives helps ease that transition of responsibility. When everyone is expecting the replacement, they are in a better position to help them when they arrive, which means the handover isn't solely the responsibility of the leaver.
Part of the handover process should include shadowing, as this is an excellent way for the new starter to see how their predecessor spent their time. It is the most effective way of offering a snapshot of what they should expect when taking full responsibility. Typically, a shadow session should ideally include meetings with various teams and demonstrate the day-to-day work. It's a good idea to mention the prospect of shadowing during the interview and onboarding process.
This is a great time to understand how quickly the new starter can get up to speed using different systems. Some businesses have very unique setups that may take a while to learn. However, sitting with someone who uses a specific type of program every day is the best way to learn how to use it. That said, the manager can organise additional training if there isn't enough time for the new starter to learn from the leaver.
During offboarding, productivity will be affected. There's no doubt about it. But letting everyone know in advance what is happening can reduce the impact of the leaver's departure.
Some employees will likely have to pick up the slack, and projects may need to go on hold until the new starter is up to speed. Nevertheless, onboarding a new joiner should be an exciting time, not a cause of stress.
Any change can put extra pressure on your teams, and you can support their wellbeing in many ways — whether it's holding a few more check-ins, or offering tools and discounts to help them live as healthy a life as possible.
Fortunately, Perkbox includes plenty of free wellbeing resources, including on-demand HIIT workouts, relaxing yoga flows, and meditations. Not to mention, thousands of perks, discounts, and freebies that include plenty of health and wellbeing products and experiences, from athleisure wear to spa breaks, and more.
Perkbox makes both onboarding and offboarding easy, due to its enhanced administration feature. Because Perkbox integrates well with leading HRISs, you can automatically create and remove individual users and teams. Additionally, the in-depth reporting offers valuable insights into what perks and benefits your teams use the most so you can invest in areas with the highest ROI.
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