When an employee gives their notice, the business is left to find a replacement as soon as it possibly can. This is not always as easy as it sounds: Transitioning responsibilities from the exiting employee to a different team member or a new hire needs to happen swiftly but effectively.
In such a case, the company may need to reconsider the usual onboarding procedures in the interest of expediency. But how does a company do this strategically without sacrificing too much? Where does the balance in this equation lie?
Eleven contributors to Forbes Human Resources Council explore the most effective approaches to transitioning responsibilities from an employee that's leaving to one that's new in the role or is just entering the company.
1. Leverage Position-Specific Processes
Process documentation for all duties and responsibilities and make sure it is reviewed and updated on a quarterly basis -- this will aid new team members in jumping in quickly and effectively. This has proven to be helpful whether we are cross-training or bringing new members to our team. - Kathy Short, Yorktown Systems Group
2. Cross-Train Employees
Cross-training your employees is a proactive way to ensure that you have coverage with little disruption during a transition or organizational change. It also provides learning and growth opportunities for employees, which leads to better retention. - Jenna Hinrichsen, Advanced RPO
3. Have Weekly Touch Points
Regardless of the amount of expertise that a new employee brings to your company, the transition of work to each new employee is more of an art than science. Maintaining close communication, and ensuring a timely transition and instructions to key projects and clients, will help increase both retention and team reputation in your organization. - Erald Minga, Kellogg School of Management
4. Embrace Streamlined Onboarding
Set up automated employee onboarding to allow information from the employee’s application to flow seamlessly into payroll and other areas of your company’s system upon hire, without duplicating efforts. This speeds up the process, ensuring your new team member arrives ready to start learning responsibilities and key components of their work instead of filling out paperwork. - Jennifer Kraszewski, Paycom
5. Have Detailed Offboarding Plans
The biggest trend that we will see in the next decade is going to be effective offboarding. When someone says they are going to leave, a detailed offboarding plan needs to happen to ensure that all information the employee knows is transferred back to the company and set for the new person to take on and understand. Think of it as part of your new onboarding plan. - Kelly Loudermilk, BuildHR, Inc.
6. Have Exiting Employees Lead The Process
If an employee is being upfront about their exit plans, you can use it as an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition. Give them a recruiting budget and a timeline to hire their replacement. If you allow them to drive the process and give them adequate resources, you will minimize disruption and create an external resource if the new employee has questions in the future. - Ken Kanara, ECA
7. Mimic The Business Flow
One way to help new hires navigate their responsibilities is to create theme days that mimic the flow of the business. Often, onboarding plans are a disjointed set of experiences and unfamiliar faces. Theme each day around a topic like sales or service or technology. It puts the work processes and people in context. It also allows the new hire to prepare questions in advance and immerse in a topic. - Karen Crone, Paycor, Inc.
8. Include Stakeholders In The Process
In addition to documentation from the departing employee and feedback from the direct manager, be sure to include key stakeholders in the onboarding. They can share valuable insight into what is working and what is not so that the new hire is able to make improvements to the process they own immediately versus maintaining the status quo. Those fresh eyes are invaluable! - Jessica Adams, Brad's Deals
9. Delegate Tasks To Various Team Members
Getting a new hire up to speed in their role can take some time. One approach that may help ease some of the pressure is to delegate different portions of the training to different team members. Set a schedule for "task transitions" over a period of time, and have each team member work with the new hire to transition that responsibility to them before moving on to the next one. - Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations, Inc.
10. Make Standard Operating Procedures The Norm
Begin a culture where documented standard operating procedures (SOPs) are the norm within your organization. Employees should have written SOPs for the most significant tasks assigned to their positions. They should be written plainly and with screenshots, if possible, so that even someone without extensive experience can pick it up and complete the task as needed. This is invaluable during both short- and long-term transitions. - Rebecca Edwards, Infinite HR of Charlotte
11. Create A Reward System For Advance Notices
If you make it a known culture where you incentivize departing employees who have deep client relationships or technical acumen, offer generous transition packages to incentivize the departing employee to be responsible for successful transitions. Ideally, make everyone responsible for successfully transitioning in their own successor at the onset by putting that in everyone’s job descriptions. - Zain Hasan, Risk Strategies Company
