Administration of Human resources has always been a tricky process right from the onboarding of an employee to their offboarding. An employee’s exit from the company brings along a lot of paperwork and processes which include:
- Terminating the employee’s system access
- Taking handover of official assets
- Completing paperwork
- Communicating the departure to other departments
- Initiating full and final settlement
- Providing relieving letter and more.
Digitalization has, however, simplified these processes with the use of cloud-based HR software. But many of us wonder, why we need to spend in automating the offboarding process. So, in this blog, we will bring to light what is offboarding automation and the benefits of Offboarding Automation in Workplace.
Also Read: HR Workflow Automation: 15 Advantages to HR Department
What is Offboarding Automation?
Automating offboarding means minimalizing the usage of traditional methods to manage the paperwork involved and associated data in the exit procedure of an employee. Offboarding includes a lot of processes like recovering the assets from the employee, notifying other departments about the departure, and taking handover of documents and other official extracts. It is generally undertaken using cloud-based HR software which organizes, saves, and tracks the clearance and validation of the documents.
After getting a brief on automation in offboarding, let us take a dig at its benefits.
7 Important Benefits of Offboarding Automation
Let’s go through the benefits of offboarding automation in detail,
Standardized Documentation
Well-organized documentation keeps one away from confusion. Offboarding being a complicated task, needs appropriate management of documents to avoid any misses during the employee’s notice period. Usually, once an employee leaves a company, they barely stay in touch with their former employer. So, before the exit, HR management needs proper cooperation with the employee to obtain the official gadgets and information passed on to them during their employment. HR software provides a systemized checklist to avoid any confusion or omission of any vital document.
Zero Data Theft
Not all employees leave the company on good terms and they mostly have access to several official data after they leave. So, possibilities prevail of unauthorized access for misusing confidential information against the company. In automated offboarding, the software ensures the closure of all official accounts containing data irrespective of confidentiality by reporting those to the management.
Brownie Points from Former Employees
When offboarding proceeds easily, the clearance and full and final settlement of the former employee proceeds quickly. It ultimately forms a positive impression on the employee, wherein, the company wins an optimistic review in the market which paves the way to gain goodwill as well as maintain a good reputation.
Also Read: How to Make Virtual Onboarding More Effective?
Treasuring and Retrieving Transferred Knowledge
While offboarding, employees are expected to pass on the knowledge or information gained and assignments completed during the duration of employment. Automation enables the storage of information, which can be retrieved during the time of data loss or urgency.
Location Flexibility
Some work demands working from a remote location and after the recent breakout of the global pandemic, many employees have switched to work-from-home alternatives. It creates problems during the employee’s exit as the employee would not be present in the office for proper offboarding procedures starting from paperwork to handover. Automation eases offboarding irrespective of location as employees can upload all the necessary documents required for handover and the clearance goes smoothly thereafter.
Automated Clearance
Automation enables tracking of assets and assignments that is expected from the employee to hand over during the time of exit. Hence, automatic clearance of the full and final settlement amount and relieving letters to the employees are generated automatically after tracking.
Time Economizing
HR processes involve masses of assignments and offboarding involves lengthy paper processes and various procedures which consume bulk time, thereby shifting the focus of HR from other work priorities. Automation saves time for Human Resource management to shift their focus from offboarding to other tasks.
How does HR software automate Offboarding?
Modern HR software aims to simplify HR processes with its unique and advanced attributes. These HR systems include advanced feature such as:
Employee Data Management
HRMS manages employees’ data with centralized master records which works as a trouble-shooter during the time of data loss wherein, the lost data can be retrieved even after the exit of the employee. It also eliminates the dependency of the company on the ex-employees to extract any past assignments as the data gets saved in the application for future reference.
Smooth F&F Process
HR software provides complete separation management and customizes mandatory approvals required for processing the full and final account of the employees. It further saves time from the process of getting approval from the rigid hierarchical complexes.
Automated Clearances
Clearances have been complicated and include a lot of paper works. HR systems have a distinctive feature wherein, the clearance of an employee automatically gets credited after asset tracking and validation in the app. In addition, the data gets stored in an organized way, reducing the length of clearance processing days.
Mobile Accessibility
Modern HRMS comes with dedicated Android and iOS apps that enable easy payslip downloads and eliminate location barrier for any leaving employee working from a remote location. The mobile app access eases the process of handing over assignments and data conveniently from any work location.
Sending Notifications
An employee exit adds to the HR tasks of notifying other departments regarding the same. Specifically, IT, finance, and administrative departments, as the clearance and F&F go through them. HRMS solutions automatically send reminders to their mobiles regarding the exit date of an employee effectively speeding up the process.
Conclusion
In recent times, automation in offboarding is the need of the hour as it not only smoothens HR processes but also facilitates the employee during their exit by providing faster access to submit all the office assets without any complexity.
Those were a few specifics on the brief of offboarding automation, its benefit, and how a dedicated HRMS helps in providing a hassle-free solution to the lengthy offboarding procedures.
