Taking care of the departure of an employee means making him an ambassador: a strong element for your employer brand.
As they enter the job market, young graduates, like others, have increasingly high expectations in terms of Self-realization And of reconnaissance. During their studies, they gradually define a certain future project that meets their hopes in terms of tasks to be carried out, working conditions and relationships, purpose of work (the meaning) and of centrality of work (the place he gives in his life). Even though young people are aware of the fact that they are less likely than previous generations to have a standard of living higher than or even equal to that of their parents, they remain very optimistic and their aspirations are not being reduced. On the contrary, they are more and more demanding.
But these aspirations, between reality and dream, between possible and ideal, can “take a hit” when they encounter the reality of the world of work. Their first experiences, their first impressions greatly influence their career aspirations.
Young people are now looking to find a place that allows them to fulfill themselves ; they are now aware of the fact that this first position no longer has to be synonymous with job stability, but that it is simply a first step in their professional career. Their careers are increasingly punctuated by breakups, job changes or a return to school and the idea of changing jobs regularly in order to learn more and participate in new projects is becoming more widespread. They say they are ready to leave their job the day when it will no longer provide them with enough satisfaction or “challenges”.
These work aspirations and expectations are changing businesses. Employees are becoming less and less utilitarian; the aim of employment is no longer just to “make a living”; on the contrary, they are becoming more and more involved and even passionate about their job. LThe purpose of work becomes the valorization, the realization and the surpassing of oneself.. In fact, in 1990, Maccoby put forward the concept of”Self-developer”, a new generation of employees who want to apply to work the intellectual and communicative skills acquired before entering the job market. For these generations, work is a key element in the process of development and self-realization.
This change in mentalities is all the more pronounced when one compares the aspirations before entering the job with those expressed as they evolve on the labour market. Throughout their journey, employees are moving towards greater expressiveness, but they are also more ambitious at the beginning of their careers. Their first professional experiences are therefore fundamental. It is then up to companies to put in the necessary means to meet the expectations of these new generations. Indeed, they are more passionate and committed than the previous ones. This poses a new challenge to companies, and in particular to managers, who now need to do more to enable their employees to achieve their goals in terms of self-realization and recognition. For this, the care given to the first impression, but also at the last impression of an employee in a company, is increasingly important.
Faced with these new generations with growing aspirations, companies are implementing strategies to enable them to satisfy their desires. The importance of the first impression during a professional experience is not new, but the integration and retention of employees during their first days and weeks is recent. LOnboarding is in fashion and the solutions to structure it have multiplied over the last 10 years in order to give a remarkable first impression to employees.
According to Hansen and Danaher (1999), perceived quality and trust are largely influenced by the initial impression. However, this same study shows that In turn, the final impression affects the satisfaction expressed by the employee. While the initial impression relates to onboarding, the final impression relates toOffboarding, that is to say how to manage the end of an employee's career. This final impression perceived by the latter forms theultimate evaluation of his experience, these last moments are then decisive. However, offboarding remains on the sidelines. Departure management is not considered in the same way as arrival management and the initial impression is then marred by the final impression. The last impression precisely forms the ultimate opinion of the employee; companies therefore have an interest in investing in managing these last moments.
What do you remember about fireworks? The final bouquet. What is the most important moment when we watch a movie? The final moments of the movie where everything comes to an end. During a concert, when is the most popular music played? In the last few minutes. Why would it be different for the last moments in a company when Offboarding makes it possible to end the adventure remarkably in a real final bouquet who will mark the spirit of the collaborator?
The new generations then often face an experience that is more frustrating than engaging. Indeed, onboarding acts as a promise made to the employee, a promise that more or less meets his aspirations but which in any case aims to retain and integrate him. These first days create a certain expectation and hope for the employee, but if everything falls apart during the last few days, then the frustration is such that the employee will remember almost nothing more than that. Preparing for the last days, as you can do for the first few days, allows you to value the progress made by the employee and to take a step back on what he was able to contribute. N
As we have seen, this need for recognition and this feeling of having participated and evolved within the project is fundamental for the new generations. Taking care of offboarding therefore means assuring the employee that his aspirations have been fulfilled. Leaving your job with the feeling of being just one more person, of not having marked the company by your passage is no longer compatible with the evolution of the mentalities of the younger generations. An employee is most often committed to Leave leaving a good impression, even more so in the age of recommendations on Linkedin and systematic reference checks. We must therefore take advantage of his last weeks to offer him a remarkable offboarding. By sharing their experience and knowledge before leaving, the employee will then have the feeling of having left a trace.
However, a question arises: what does the company gain by investing in offboarding? What does it actually make it possible to value the employee's career path? Let's discover it together.
When looking for a job, young talents are paying more and more attention to the reputation and image of the company. In the same way that you check the quality of a restaurant or a hotel on Google or Tripadvisor, you can now do the same for businesses thanks to business rating platforms, such as Glassdoor or ChooseMyCompany. New generations live in the age of opinions, ratings and recommendations. While until now the focus has been almost exclusively on reviews and customer experiences (TrustPilot), collaborator reviews are becoming more and more important. An employee's opinion is a guarantee of trust, it is an internal and realistic opinion that gives a concrete image of how the experience is going at a position, or more generally in a company. Companies therefore have every interest in meeting the expectations of their employees as best as possible, a heavy task that rests almost entirely on the shoulders of the manager and the Human Resources Department.
To ensure that an employee leaves the company with a very good image of their employer, you must therefore Take care not only of your first moments in the company but especially “your last mile”. Valuing an employee's career and showing them recognition for the work accomplished throughout their period in office is not, however, historically at the heart of HR strategies. As new generations of employees are much more expressive and communicative than the previous ones, there is a growing interest in implementing onboarding and offboarding programs. But The interest isn't just limited to the grade the company gets on Glassdoor. Supporting employees throughout their career is a real investment in the future.
In fact, When an employee leaves a company, his adventure with it does not end, even more so if the two parties parted ways on a good note. The boomerang recruitment phenomenon (the fact that an ex-employee joins the company again) is just one example. The latter could also come back as customers or as partners. If during his experience in the company, the latter has retained a remarkable memory of it because this passage allowed him to realize and develop, he will not hesitate to come back to you or to advise his friends and colleagues to collaborate with you.
In short: Investing in onboarding and offboarding therefore makes it possible both to boost the productivity of your new employee while integrating him effectively and to enhance the career of your outgoing employee in order to make him a true ambassador, a spokesperson for your company.
We have therefore developed Komin in order to allow an offboardee to transmit his best practices and the experience acquired in his position directly to his successor. Komin allows you to enhance your career thanks to a rewards system in line with the new concerns of the world of work, which also saves the manager time in integrating and training the onboarder.
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