Offboarding is the final stage of the employee lifecycle and is a key moment of the employee experience, also known as employee exit management. Offboarding describes the consciously designed separation process whereby an employee leaves the organization, either through voluntary resignation, layoff, or termination. Essentially, employees join the organization through the onboarding process and leave through the offboarding process.
The employee lifecycle is a model that describes the phases that a typical employee moves through during their employment. At the DOE, this model consists of six stages, beginning with recruiting and hiring, spanning through onboarding, and ending with offboarding. If you have been intentional about your employee’s lifecycle throughout each stage, the offboarding stage will mark a logical transition point between the DOE and the next stop on your employee’s journey.
One final question is essential to the employee at the offboarding stage—did the organization set me up for future successes? The role of the hiring manager and HR director at this stage will be to ensure a positive experience and guide their colleague through the steps for exiting their employment at the DOE. Here are a few questions to think about when offboarding a member of your team:
- Have you thanked your employee for the contributions they’ve made to your team?
- Have you helped your employee wrap-up and transition their main work streams?
- Has the employee returned their DOE equipment, which can include laptop and blackberry?
- Have you created a space for the employee to share their lessons learned with you and the team?
- Have you formally notified team members of their colleague’s departure?
Review this helpful document from bambooHR, Exit Interview Benefits, Best Practices, and Precautions, for information and ideas to help you think about the offboarding process more strategically on your team.
Offboarding Resources & Tools
- The Administrative Operations Reference Guide includes detailed, essential information for operations personnel and HR directors. Refer to the “Offboarding” page in the “Human Resources” section.
- Review the “Leaving the DOE” document on the InfoHub for a detailed checklist of necessary steps.
- Check the overview of information and resources for unemployment and retirement benefits on the InfoHub's Former Employees page.
- Find relevant forms on the InfoHub's Non-Employee HR Forms page (e.g., COBRA and ERB Health Benefits Application Forms)
- For detailed and up-to-date information about retirement and resignation, see the HR Connect Web Portal’s Retirement and Resignation page. (Note that you will need to first log in to HR Connect Web Portal to get to the page.)
- For a step-by-step of the process of retiring from the DOE, see the HR Connect Web Portal’s Information for Retirees page. (Note that you will need to first log in to HR Connect Web Portal to get to the page.)
If you are a Human Resources Director or other HR professional and have any questions about this page or would like additional guidance, please contact ODTC@schools.nyc.gov. If you are a new employee and have questions, please reach out to your supervisor or your Human Resources Director, who is your main point of contact for all offboarding paperwork and action items.