Leaver Journey

Similar to candidate journey, companies design leaver journey in order to ensure that each employee quitting the company is exited in a structured and orderly manner.

The leaver journey starts from the time the employee gives notice to his or her employer about the intention to quit (voluntary separation) or the company asks the employee to leave (involuntary separation). It ends formally when all tasks on employee departure checklist are completed.

In case of resignation, HR departments regularly conduct exit interview
* to assess the reasons for the employee leaving the company,
* to take the employee’s views on work and the company in general as well as
* to explore any “de-motivating” factors that led the employee to resign.

In case of involuntary separations, exit interviews are rare, as the leavers seldom cooperate. At the same time, any discussions beyond the termination chat are not easy to perform, neither by line-manager nor by HR. They are biased and besides this almost every list of exit questions addresses positive aspects of employment and this only increases leaver’s sorrow and regret.

Having no possibility to discuss the dismissal in an organized way, leavers do not have the opportunity to talk about their feelings, alleviate their emotions and verbalize their anger. Full of discomfort, desperation and bitterness, they go home and have all incentives that can cause harm to the company despite that their separation has been handled in a professional and mature manner. Stealing clients, poaching talent, failing a law suit resulting in financial burdens and bad press on employer ratings sites are only some of them.

As the fair and appropriate severance pay, may sweeten leavers unexpected turn in life, companies should go beyond it. Companies who want to mitigate risks of leavers’ “revenge” should help them to cope with the dismissal. Providing counseling, career, and job search support, delivered by an objective third party such as an outplacement provider, is one possible way.

Top HR Topics in 2012

The first quarter of 2012 past. Three HR Topics facing HR professionals this year have all to do with Employer Branding.

The first one is recruitment related topic, candidate journeys/experience and concerns future and potential employees. Designing candidate experience in a way that it ensures recruiters’ responsiveness can help companies to differentiate themselves in a war for talent.

The second topic relates to performance management and concerns current employees. Key issues include employee conduct, performance improvement plans and strategies for dealing with a problem employee. Designing full-filling jobs with the right performance metrics can help companies to create meaningful customer relationships and outperform their competitors.

The third topic pertains to leaver journeys/experience which affects departing and ex-employees. Companies need to design outplacement processes in a way that emotions are well managed, feelings are compensated, and financial matters are taken care of. Other issues are strategies and tactics for dealing with any potential ex-employees negative feedback on employers’ review and ratings site.