Why does design offboarding matter?
– Learn why employee offboarding is critical for the team and the departing designer
What is employee offboarding?
Offboarding, also sometimes referred to as a “handover”, is a separation process between the employee and the employer.
This process can be viewed as a technical to-do list or as a more intricate, human-centred approach.
Technically, offboarding is about things such as termination contracts, collecting assets, reclaiming equipment and handling outstanding payouts. Broadly speaking, it’s a human-centred process: collateral surrounding a person (in our case, a designer) leaving a group of interdepended people.
Why should the team care?
Ariel Hiez mentions four essential matters the team should take care of in case of any kind of offboarding:
- people
- productivity
- security
- regulations
People are at the centre of any team. The person leaving will leave a void. The decision needs to be communicated with a meaninful level of sensitivity. The remaining work should be cancelled or redistributed. Co-workers taking upon leftover tasks will expect support, dedicated time to learn, changes in their role and adjustments to compensations.
If the leadership leaves dealing with the post-departure chaos up to a chance, productivity will go down. In the U.S., nearly 50% of the workforce already feels disengaged and is quietly quitting. In Europe, 41% of 500 surveyed employees were considered at high risk of eventually having a mental health disorder.
Let’s face it. In the age of the great resignation, there isn’t that much extra “all hands on deck” stretching people are willing to do.
When the team works with sensitive data, a security breach due to human errors is a possible threat. A person departing might take along vulnerable customer data or even use company IP for their own gains.
Employers have legal responsibilities towards departing employees, such as compensating outstanding holidays and, in some cases, severance pay. Depending on the industry, the company might also be subjected to regulations regarding risk prevention and cyber asset management.
All of this is a baseline for any kind of offboarding.
In case it’s a designer who is leaving, the team faces additional, domain-specific considerations, such as:
- What did the designer do?
- What kind of skills should the successor have?
- What ongoing and past projects designer was responsible for?
- Where are our raw files and key assets? How to edit them?
- What are our brand identity and tone of voice?
- What are the essential guides for the successor?
- Who has this designer worked with? Freelancers, agencies…?
- If the designer was a team lead, what did the team do?
… and so on.
Simply figuring out which questions are relevant for the team can be a result of methodical offboarding project planning. Before diving into such a project, there’s one more critical perspective to consider: should the designer care, and why?
Why should departing designer care?
Separation ends a working relationship.
This means it’s a 50/50 matter. If the team would only focus on their needs, and not the wishes and needs of the leaving team member, the handover experience can be unpleasant — or even unnecessary.
First of all, designers should consider their unique situation:
- Why are they leaving?
- Is the departure friendly?
- Is it self-initiated?
- Is helping with the handovers a lucrative idea?
Matej Latin’s survey shows the biggest reasons for designers in the tech sphere to leave are “no career progression opportunities”, “unhappiness with the work” and “problems with company culture”.
The reason to leave matters, because it sets the tone for the remaining collaboration.
In the worse cases, e.g. due to toxic culture or project termination, the company and the departing designer should just call quits, to prevent further employee reputation damage. I can ensure you, designers are a tightly-knitted community with powerful WOM. 😅
Typically, there’s room for either an emergency handover or a proper offboarding project, which I recommend. If done well, the offboarding project can help the designer to:
- End on a proud and professional note
- Get appreciation from the colleagues staying behind
- Let go mentally of any open projects
- Have a chance to collect cases and assets for your portfolio
- Take part in exit interviews and collect feedback from peers
- Negotiate transition rewards, such as coaching and career courses
- Pave the way for potential boomerang return or consultancy projects
Where to start?
If your designer colleague is leaving, and you’re the one dealing with the void ahead, see how to build an elegant offboarding project here.
Designers contemplating how to depart well might benefit from this post.
In case everyone strongly agrees on limited on time and resources, check how to handle an emergency offboarding within a few hours/days.
And if you’re interested in the steps regarding offboarding a C-level designer, check this detailed documentation.
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