Background
That people leave your management team or Board is a fact, and it is not surprising that the turn over rate is higher than ever.
For the smooth and effective workings of the team, it is good idea to take a look at your offboarding process. Logical questions to ask are:
What open issues are the person who is leaving responsible for? How can the ownership be transferred to the team? What information do we need to continue to work on the issue till its completion?
What uncompleted shared tasks does the person have assigned? Similarly, how can we take them over and make sure they are completed?
Does the person have personal tasks, i.e. in ToDo, that in some way are related to the team? Can they also be handed over to the team?
Are there documents that the person has stored in his or her OneDrive that are of importance to the team? Can we make sure that they are passed over?
Will the person be leaving the organization completely? How do we reach the person if we have to in the future? Personal contact information, please.
If the person is leaving the organization, will his or her account be removed? For how long will we be able to use the links to his or her OneDrive? Is it possible to have the access transferred to the team of the person’s OneDrive?
What roles did the person have in your digital workplace? Is he or she an owner of the Team? Is there more owners? Are there any solutions that depend on his or her user account (such as flows in Power Automate or apps in Power Automate)? You’d better make sure that the solutions you use continue to function even after the person has left the team (and the organization).
An onboarding flow
There can be quite a lot to think of in terms of the offboarding, as we have seen above. Having a flow for the offboarding, that runs automatically once started, is smart use of the technology of Microsoft 365. Below we describe how such a flow could work.
Step 1: Start the offboarding process
The offboarding process can be started either by submitting a form (in Power Apps) or by clicking on the link in the list of team members.
If your offboarding process is straight forward and you don’t need extra logic and information (e.g. targeted date for the offboarding to be completed, whether the user account will be deleted, etc. that influences what should happen in the flow) then the link in the list will work fine.
Otherwise, starting the offboarding through an app is to recommend (see below).
Step 2: Have a message posted about the offboarding to the team
It is a good idea to have a message posted to the team about the offboarding. Everybody might not be aware of the fact that the person is leaving, and now has a chance to plan for assisting in the offboarding process from their perspective.
Step 3: Create an offboarding tasks for the person leaving
Letting the flow create and assign a shared task for the person leaving is a good idea. You can have the link to the specific page in the team handbook inserted, as well the subtasks (e.g. read the handbook page on offboarding from the team, make sure to hand over all open issues you are responsible for, etc.).
Step 4: Announce to the team that the offboarding has been completed
When the offboarding task has been marked completed, it is a good idea to announce to the team that the offboarding of the person has been finished. The team now has a chance to reflect whether there’s anything else they need to get from the person leaving.
Conclusion
Having a structured offboarding process is very valuable for any team who wants to make sure of its professionalism and continuity of work. And if your team conducts a lot of its work in Microsoft 365, it can be a great idea to design an offboarding flow in Microsoft 365. The flow can perform automated steps that you don’t have to remember to execute manually (and the new versions of the team will benefit from your work and be very happy to get such a nice gift of sustainability).
Do you want to get started? You are welcome to book a meeting with us (see the footer) and we will help you.
