The outbreak of the pandemic has transformed the way workplaces operate globally. Work from home and hybrid working has become the new normal in the business landscape with extensive digital dependency. However, it has brought its share of problems, especially while onboarding and offboarding the employees. We are here to talk about the latter.
The employee offboarding process is as essential and complex as onboarding. Whether the employee leaves voluntarily or involuntarily, HRs should pay attention-to-details to the whole process to keep it streamlined, consistent, and compliant. Typically, an offboarding process includes a multitude of steps to complete, making it difficult for HRs to manage efficiently. As a result, the majority of employees walk away discontented.
Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in HR is the right solution to address this problem. AI helps organizations streamline their offboarding process to make it efficient.
This blog gives insights into some of the most common offboarding challenges and how you can tackle them with employee offboarding automation.
What is employee offboarding automation?
The employee offboarding process encompasses a series of steps that HRs take when an employee leaves an organization after submitting their resignation. It involves sorting all necessary details about the employee, from releasing any due payments to recovering assets, avoiding any risks of dispute, etc.
An automated employee offboarding process does all this seamlessly, thereby saving the time and effort of HRs. It sets up the step-by-step tasks necessary for a smooth offboarding of multiple employees simultaneously.
Further, the advanced work efficiency, convenience, and time-saving features of AI-integrated HR systems make it more appealing for companies to opt for them at higher rates. According to recent data, organizations that automate their offboarding process with AI can increase productivity by up to a significant 65%.
But before we get into how you can automate the offboarding, let us look into the current challenges of HR in the process.
What are the current challenges of employee offboarding?
HR processes are often complex and offboarding is one of them. Despite various advancements in work environments, there are still some challenges that HR personnel face when it comes to employee offboarding:
Recovering company assets
Organizations provide their employees with technology-based assets like phones and laptops equipped to deal with a dynamic threat landscape. This way, the IT department helps safeguard the company’s trade secrets and manages software health.
However, during the employee offboarding process, retrieval of mobile phones, laptops, security passes, etc., from the employees becomes tricky due to manual process management, resulting in misleading records and loss of assets to the company.
Ensuring legal compliance during an employee’s departure from the company
Legal documentation and conflict resolution can be highly complex if the offboarding process is not comprehensive and up to date. While employee offboarding should go smoothly and amicably, exceptions can arise in certain situations. It is more likely if the employee’s departure is involuntary. Unfair dismissal is not that uncommon in such cases.
It is challenging to adjudicate any claims if there is a lack of a clear and crisp trail of audited key events. For example, there can be a confidentiality breach or compliance violation due to manual administrative errors.
Revoking system access
No matter how efficiently the HR offboards an exiting employee, a sense of displeasure and grudge can harm the organization. So, revoking access to the internal system is critical in keeping the integrity and safety of the company.
While HRs can simply notify the IT department to initiate the same, the IT team may not be available at that time and hence, miss out on revoking access. As a result, an unhappy employee can cause a significant data breach.
Engaging the employee in an alumni group
What is your biggest asset in acquiring quality talent? Referral of highly-skilled candidates from contented former employees. It is also an added advantage if a former employee returns to the workplace, bringing with them additional experience as well as familiarity.
If the employee offboarding is smooth and cordial, it keeps the option of referrals and rehires open, benefiting the organization tremendously. But if your organization has a huge employee base, keeping track of the alumni network can be cumbersome, compromising your organization’s interest in acquiring talent and maintaining relationships.
How AI and automation can help overcome offboarding challenges?
AI is transforming several processes and functions in HR across industries. Let us take a look at the top ways in which organizations are overcoming the above-stated challenges as they automate their offboarding process:
Strengthens IT security and compliance
Artificial intelligence has proved to be a utilitarian addition to the employee offboarding process due to minimal chances of human error. It is critical in keeping IT security intact.
After an employee leaves or is terminated, automated offboarding revokes that employee’s access to the company’s system straight away. It significantly lowers the chances of breaches in internal data.
Apart from that, using a top-notch AI solution in the HR system can keep track of key events more efficiently. It makes the offboarding process more legally compliant for both the parties involved, decreasing the chances of any inaccurate or false claims.
Reduces the burden on the HR department
The more a company grows, the more complex its offboarding process becomes. Offboarding is time-consuming and involves the completion of different tasks and formalities, leaving a window of error open.
For example, if an employee has been let go, the HR department has to deal with coordination within various linked departments such as notifying IT, communicating with the finance team to remove the employee from payroll, sorting out any outstanding due, and much more.
But with an efficient offboarding automation system, the burden on the HR department drops significantly. The HR personnel simply need to start the process and the system takes care of it all without any mishaps.
Eliminates errors that cause financial loss
Automating the employee offboarding process reduces the significant risk of errors. For instance, an employee has a company asset in his/her possession. However, due to some mistake in the records, the asset could not be recovered. Even if it happens rarely, it can cause immense financial loss to the organization.
So, when you automate the entire offboarding process, you reduce the possibility of such errors, ensuring smooth operations without losing track of any important asset. HRs can instantly track the device given to a particular employee, making it easier to recover it without any delay. It also holds for monitoring and managing company expenses that an employee was granted.
Gets rid of paperwork
Offboarding automation makes the process seamless for both the organization and the employee by eliminating paperwork.
Besides, the process becomes faster and more consistent for all the employees.
An AI-driven tool streamlines document management by helping HRs share documents digitally and letting employees fill and submit then and there. HRs can use the document management software as a single source of truth for storing all the offboarding-related documents.
Improves efficiency that positively impacts operations
Automating the offboarding process ensures all the required steps are complete within specified timelines. HRs need not chase any department on emails for collaboration. It ascertains the high productivity and efficiency of HRs without impacting their regular operations.
Benefits of employee offboarding automation
Automating the employee offboarding process offers many advantages for different stakeholders involved in the process. Read below to understand how AI in HR can help you reap the benefits of automating the offboarding process:
Streamlines the documentation process
An organization and employees exchange several documents during the offboarding process. On top of it, there are innumerable copies of the same information, making it difficult to manage. Automation streamlines the documentation process right from collecting, segmenting/categorizing, and saving them at a centralized location.
Scales up efficiently
The offboarding process includes a series of mundane but crucial tasks that are prone to error. It is frequent if several employees go through offboarding at the same time. But AI systems automatically initiate all the necessary steps and help HRs complete the process at scale without missing a beat!
Focus on building connections with employees
Organizations must ensure that every department has a manageable workload. An AI-powered offboarding software reduces the pressure on the HR department by automating the repetitive tasks on the offboarding checklist. It leaves them more time to focus on aspects that require human intervention, such as fostering relationships with departing employees.
Save time
In business, time is money. A lengthy employee offboarding process consumes a lot of unnecessary time, sometimes hampering regular operations. One of the advantages of automating the offboarding process is that it saves the organization and the employee a lot of time that could have otherwise dissipated. It shows that your company values their time as well as the departing employees’.
Speed up exit and clearance formalities
With less hassle and less paperwork, the exit is conducted swiftly with all the due formalities. Hence it becomes easier for the company to look for and hire the replacement quickly as well.
Besides, the exit surveys analyze departing employees’ feedback to help organizations understand the actual reason for leaving the company. This way, organizations can take the necessary steps to boost employee retention rates.
Provide a smooth offboarding experience to the departing employees
Departing employees are the future ambassadors of your organization. So, even if they leave your company, the least they deserve is a smooth offboarding experience.
With a job change or sudden unemployment, an exiting employee also deals with complexities. A long and tiring offboarding process with numerous meetings and a mountain of paperwork makes it even worse.
With automated offboarding, you can guarantee a coherent experience for an employee who has served your company. In the long haul, using AI in employee offboarding will only add a positive connotation to your organization’s image.
Analyze exit survey results and increase retention
It is always a loss to let go of a valued employee. While resignation letters contain a bunch of pleasantries, the real reason for the employee leaving your organization often remains in the dark. It is where AI systems can help you.
The AI-based automated offboarding system conducts smooth exit surveys for departing employees. The software also analyzes the feedback to generate conclusive and insightful reports. Based on the report, HRs and organizations can take necessary steps to increase employee satisfaction and hence, the retention rate.
Automatically plan knowledge transfer
Letting go of an employee can be a drawback to the organization if there is no efficient framework for knowledge transfer. AI-based automated offboarding systems initiate knowledge transfer sessions as a part of the process between the concerned employees and the successor of the job role. It helps in smooth transitioning and maintains productivity in the workplace.
Easy to acquire new talent
Did you know that 70% of job candidates read through employee reviews before joining a company? Automated offboarding eases the process, resulting in a satisfied exiting employee, promoting a positive image of the organization even after departure.
Additionally, a streamlined offboarding process leaves you with actionable insights that you can use while hiring for the same role.
Employee offboarding automation made simple with Leena AI
With an automated employee offboarding tool like Leena AI’s, you not only have a streamlined process but also get intelligent insights from the offboarding program using tools like exit surveys and sentiment analysis.
Your HR team can focus on building interpersonal relationships with employees, understand their needs better and optimize processes as well as policies to keep up with their expectations to promote a positive work culture.
Ready to simplify and make your employee offboarding process intelligent? Book a demo with Leena AI experts today!
