What Is Included in the Offboarding Process?

Offboarding shouldn’t just be about saying goodbye. It should be focused on creating a smooth, secure transition for your departing employee and for your organization. A well-structured offboarding process helps you protect company data, maintain operational integrity, and leaves a positive impression on the exiting employee. In this blog, we’ll dive into what’s included in the offboarding process, touching on tools like an offboarding checklist and employee offboarding automation. Let’s get started!

What Is the Purpose of Offboarding?

The main point of implementing a robust employee offboarding process is simple: to protect your company. Whenever an employee leaves, the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access rises significantly. A study by Verizon found that internal actors were responsible for 35% of all data breaches—an important thing to remember, considering the global average cost of a data breach in 2023 reached $4.45 million. 

By managing the offboarding process diligently, you can mitigate the risk of data breaches, maintain compliance with data protection regulations, safeguard your business operations, and minimize any vulnerabilities that an ex-employee could potentially exploit. Taking a proactive approach is the way to go—don’t just sit back and wait for something bad to happen (like the 71% of organizations with no formal offboarding process)!

What Is Included in the Offboarding Process?

Offboarding should be a comprehensive process that helps transition the departing employee out of your company while keeping everything secure and compliant. Both HR and IT play important roles in this process, each handling different aspects to make the transition as smooth as possible.

What Are the Responsibilities of HR in Offboarding?

The offboarding process in HR should cover tasks like: 

• Preparing Documents: HR should get all the necessary paperwork ready, including termination letters, final paychecks, and benefits details. This helps wrap up all formalities and legal requirements neatly.
• Exit Interviews: Conducting exit interviews is a big part of HR's job. These interviews provide valuable feedback on the employee’s experience and can highlight areas for improvement within the company.
• Departmental Communication: HR is responsible for making sure all relevant departments are aware of the employee’s departure. This helps in coordinating the offboarding steps and ensuring no details are missed.
• Compliance and Records: Keeping detailed records and staying compliant with laws and company policies is another key responsibility. Proper documentation can be crucial for audits or any future references.
• Transition Coordination: HR should coordinate the handover of duties and responsibilities to other team members. This helps keep projects on track and ensures a smooth transition.

What Are the Responsibilities of IT in Offboarding?

IT's role should be focused on security and data protection, as outlined in this offboarding policy example:

1. Revoking Access: IT should swiftly cut off the departing employee's access to all company systems, including emails, databases, and applications as soon as they are notified of their termination. This step is essential to prevent unauthorized access.
2. Data Backup and Transfer: IT is responsible for backing up the employee’s work data and transferring it to the appropriate team members, making sure that important information isn’t lost and projects can continue without interruption.
3. Collecting Hardware: Retrieving all company-owned devices such as laptops and phones can fall under IT’s responsibility or HR’s. However, IT should be responsible for making sure that any company data on these devices is securely wiped.
4. Managing Software Licenses: IT should handle the reassignment or deactivation of software licenses used by the departing employee. This helps manage costs and keeps the software inventory accurate.
5. Security Audits: Conducting security audits is an important part of offboarding, and IT should check that all access points are secured and that there are no remaining permissions that could be exploited.

By working together, HR and IT can create a seamless offboarding process that protects your company’s assets and keeps operations running smoothly. This coordinated effort can help make the departure of any employee less disruptive and more secure for everyone involved.

How To Build an Offboarding Process

Creating an offboarding process doesn't have to be complicated. Here’s a straightforward way to get started:

1. Evaluate Your Current Offboarding Process: Take a step back and review your current procedures. Identify what’s working well and where there are gaps. Gather feedback from HR, IT, and other departments to get a complete picture. This will help you pinpoint areas for improvement.
2. Invest in the Right Tools: Choosing the right tools can simplify your offboarding process. Lumos, for example, automates key tasks like deactivating accounts and securing data. Automation helps reduce human error and keeps everything running smoothly.
3. Create the Right Documents: Draft a comprehensive offboarding process document and combine it with an offboarding checklist (like a template that’s free as a starting point). These resources should cover all steps, from revoking system access to collecting company property, and outline timelines and responsibilities. A clear checklist helps everyone stay on track and makes sure no steps are missed.
4. Train Your Team: Regularly train your HR and IT teams on the updated offboarding procedures. Make sure that everyone understands their roles and knows how to use any new tools.
5. Continuously Improve: Keep refining your offboarding process based on feedback and changing needs. Regular reviews and updates will keep your process effective and relevant.

Ready for the “secret ingredient” that will make employee lifecycle management even easier? We’ve already spoiled it, if you’ve been paying attention—investing in Lumos' unified access platform! Our customers are seeing amazing results: 

• checkr: $230K of SaaS spending reduced. 20% fewer IT tickets.
• code42: 67% privileged access reduced. 100% access tickets automated.
• Chegg: 99.6% reduction in ticket TTR. 25% fewer IT tickets.

‍Book a demo today to see how Lumos can help you with your access management needs!