Employees are Everything: Offboarding
How you end an employee relationship is just as important as how you start it. You might have heard about the tools like exit interviews, but how do you ensure they are used well and unbiased? Traci and Rob discuss just this and more about the offboarding process.
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Rob:
So, we've come to the end of our series about everything that happens before and after employment. And this episode is going to be about offboarding, and it's inevitable. Everybody who joins our company, most of them will move on at some point. There are seasons for things and it's perfectly natural. It is the nature of the way people tend to work when the average career in tech is two and a half to three and a half years. I'm guessing most of our companies are going to go through a lot of offboardings over the years, and I don't think it has to be something really negative. I think it can be something really positive, but I think we have to be, like everything else, really intentional about it.
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Rob:
How's it going, Traci?
Traci:
It's going great. I can't believe we're at the end of this series and talking about the end of people's days with us as a team and how we handle that. So it's a important topic and I think one that a lot of people skip. They just say, "It was great having you on board." Or, "Good luck." And maybe we don't wrap up the ending of people's journeys with us the best that we can.
So this is a good little topic to end with, to make sure that people have this in their strategy. When we're talking about hiring and onboarding, we have to remember that people leave as well. And that's okay.
Rob:
It's not only, okay. Sometimes it's a good thing, at least looking back at it, right? There's not every day that when you hear somebody who's given notice or if someone decides to move on, that it feels great in that moment because there's some almost rejection as a leader or as an owner to feel that way. To feel like somebody's like, "Ooh, there's something else you're going to go do?" But that's not necessarily why somebody would choose to move on. It's not rejecting you as a human, I guess. It's not always personal. I know we say that it's always both, but you can't get wrapped up in that. As an owner sometimes or as a leader, accepting it as that's what's going to happen, is probably a really healthy place for us to be.
Traci:
Yeah, and I do think for some people moving on, it should feel sad, just like saying goodbye or when you move away. It's always better to shed a few tears and for it to be sad because that means that you had great memories there and that it was a good experience.
And for us as owners too, there hopefully is a little sadness from the relationship part. And if there's not, then that means maybe we didn't do a good job forming a relationship with that person. And again, not that we have to be best friends with everybody, but we should be appreciating the people on our team and hopefully we've developed some sort of personal relationship with them and the person leaving hopefully feels the same way if they're leaving to move on to grow and improve in different ways or to move.
But yes, you're right. There can sometimes be an unhealthy feeling that we have, as owners or leaders, where we're like, “Ouch, I do feel a little bit of rejection or somebody's breaking up with me.” That kind of experience, where, “Did I fail in some way? Or is there something I could have done better?” And we start to Monday morning quarterback everything. And so we have to just make sure that there's a healthy balance there.
I think it is good for us to check ourselves, especially if somebody's leaving a little bit unhappy. It's easy to get a little jaded or to protect our ego and say, "Well they weren't thinking about this, this and this or they didn't appreciate that." And maybe some of that's true, but I do think if we're going to start out with our own individual response in this conversation, I think we do need to examine our emotions, examine what we can learn from people leaving, and even people who leave well, being really open to feedback.
I think it is one of the most critical times to be open to feedback, to be curious, and to have a very honest conversation with the person leaving.
Rob:
Yeah, absolutely. Out of all the different phases we've talked about, I think it's the one that we almost have to be the most prepared for, because of how many emotions can get wrapped up into this, that what do you want the best version of ending well to look like? And define what that is and almost write it down so that you won't forget a step, right? Because there is emotional things attached to when somebody decides to move on. And if not for you as an individual, maybe for someone on your team, there's going to be, and walking that line and doing it well I think is so critical. And I think it's so critical because humans are just wired to have the end of things color the way they view the rest of it. And it can be a great partnership, a great employment situation, and if you don't end well, you better believe that will completely change how they view the rest of it, right?
Traci:
Yeah, it's true. And I always say when you're leaving a place for the person who is leaving, you always want to be able to look in the rearview mirror on your way out the door and be able to say, "I gave the best of myself. I did well. There was some good, there was some bad. But all in all, I'm happy I had that experience."
And for the people that are saying goodbye—because oh my gosh, there is just so much boomeranging happening right now, where people are leaving and coming back, that there should rarely be a bridge burned. And I think if you can be gracious in people's exits and hold people with an open palm and say, "Thank you for how you served this team." And for those that you want to leave the door open for, be specific about leaving that door open. There's some people that you're going to be like, "I'm glad you were here, I'm glad for that experience, but you definitely weren't the right fit." Or however. But in the good cases, nowadays, especially in certain industries, there's a lot of revolving door going around.
So leave well, keep those relationships solid and be gracious on your exit.
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Rob:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not only for boomerang employees, that means employees coming back, but also the industry you work in is probably pretty small. I can't tell you how many alumni people—that's how we refer to Sparkboxers that have moved on—that we run into as clients. We've had a couple bring us in as partners with their new organization, or just work with them again in some capacity that almost you couldn't make up if you tried. No one would believe that was happening.
And I don't want to make ending well sound self-serving, but not burning bridges goes both ways. I think a lot of the times when I hear that, I hear that directed at individuals who are leaving the company, not the companies who can burn that bridge just as bad and cost themselves future opportunities or just future relationships.
Traci:
Yeah, definitely. So talk a little bit about your exit interview process. When somebody's leaving, I feel like it is…exit interviews, touching base with employees before they leave, whatever you want to call it, is such an important source of information and opportunity for improvement and knowing what we need to optimize. So how does Sparkbox go through that process?
Rob:
We have an exit survey that we do, that covers basically, rate the company. Would you work here again? Would you recommend this to others? Tell us the best part of your experience. Tell us the worst part of the experience. Why exactly are you leaving? What are you going to do next? And as well as a bunch of other things and some numerical ratings on that.
And you're right, those things are invaluable because there is always power dynamic that exists when you're talking with people, if somebody's giving an interview or whatever, even at the exit side or even on the entrance side. But when we get to an exit survey, that power dynamic starts to lessen a little bit. You give a chance for people to be honest with you.
And we look at those things and look at them really close because there's always clues to what's going on or what they thought or something we could improve. And we actually ask that question. What could Sparkbox be better at? And I think that's become really, really important as we try to get better because you are ending well with somebody, one, for that person's sake, but two, because the rest of your team is watching and your job is to make the rest of the team feel like and feel safe when they want to go end well, that they'll be given that opportunity too.
Traci:
And then what do you do with that intel?
Rob:
Yeah. So we pass it around, obviously to the leadership team and all the directors, make sure the manager gets to see it as well. But actually, a lot of times we get action items out of there, things that we will actively work on. It usually is not something that we will tell the team, "Hey, we're starting this little initiative or this project based on an exit interview or exit survey." But it shows up in those things, it gets prioritized, and those feedback loops are so stinkin’ important to always be measuring and knowing, because we could always, always, always be making improvements. So why wouldn't we take that source of truth? Because usually it's pretty accurate to get there.
Sometimes it ends up in follow-up questions as well. We've had really good luck asking somebody. Usually we get the survey, hang on to it, let their end date go, and then if we have follow-up questions, ask then. And we almost always, if we ask them, get that feedback pretty promptly and pretty honestly.
Traci:
Yeah, it's interesting. I've had so many conversations with so many different companies about exit interviews and surveys and how to disseminate that information and who does it go to? And some of these answers vary, depending on company size and what's happening.
And I know that everybody—probably a lot of people listening—have different experiences. So when you know that your answers are going to go to certain people, you might craft a different answer than you would if it was anonymous. It's very much like doing a blind anonymous 360 versus not. And so there are some clever ideas out there depending on the responses you get.
So I know that some HR departments or some owners or leadership teams will hold on to exit interviews, compile all the feedback every six months, or the leadership team might take some of the immediate feedback that they need to execute upon.
But as far as letting the rest of the team know, or letting a broader swath of people know, they might compile several exit interviews. So say you have four people leave in a six-month period or something like that, then you would compile it all so that the employees start to see, "Oh, this is more anonymous than I thought it was." Or. "Oh, they merge every..." So you would have to guess who said what. And when you do that, I know it's sad to say, but sometimes you get a little more honest feedback because people may be wanting to come back someday or may need to use some of these people as reference.
And so there can be a guardedness to some people's feedback. So it's good to, again, just increase that safe space for people as they give feedback.
Now hopefully most of the time you're going to have pleasant exit interviews and you don't have to be so protective, but you do want people to give honest feedback and you want to create as safe of a space that you possibly can to have that feedback. And that's why sometimes it's best to have the director of operations or somebody that's more in a people role than say the owner or say somebody that could be somewhat intimidating depending on the level of that person.
So I just encourage people to always think through who is the person delivering or conducting the exit interview and what type of questions are you asking? How do you provide a safe space for that person to be honest? And then how do you disseminate the information and to who?
So these are the key questions that we have to ask as we're putting together this process for our own company. And they're important questions to ask. They need to be thought through so that you know you're going about it the right way, and asking questions that will really give you the information that you need. So I love the question, what made you start thinking about or what prompted you to start looking for a job in the first place? For some people, they might be like, "Well, I wasn't looking, this person reached out to me." Well that's a very good piece of information. Okay, so people call you, all right. Or it might be, "I felt like I outgrew my job and there wasn't anywhere for me to go." Great piece of information. How are we providing opportunities to grow? Or it could be, "I just could not get the relationship with the person I was reporting to, to work out. I tried and it's just the most important relationship and I just can't do it every day."
So that first question or that key question of what was the pivot point from, I'm going to come to work every single day and I'm not really thinking about a different job and I'm super content to I think maybe I should think about leaving. So asking some of those key questions that help us get into the thought pattern will often point to what could be some things we could work on as a team and making sure that our employees feel fulfilled.
Rob:
And that's really like if we're designing these human systems, what we're after, is somewhere somebody can be challenged, somewhere somebody can grow while accepting at the same time that the people you start with won't be the people you end with. And it's a natural part of the employee experience to not be somewhere forever. I think that you and I are both of the generation that don't think about starting a job and retiring with the gold watch. That's not where we are anymore, and that's okay.
It's funny, when many years ago we'd started doing these all-hands meetings every month, and I would just say to the team, "There's seasons for things. Some of you will leave someday and that's not wrong. You will have been part of our story and we will be part of your story. And actually, in order to fulfill Sparkbox's mission as a company, we need people to leave, to take the things that we believe in out to the rest of the world because that's a bigger impact. That's part of our circle of influence. That's why we call people alumni, because that's actually us fulfilling our mission.
Does that mean we want everybody to go? No, of course not. I don't want to see those individual humans go out, but it's going to happen. And I can think of so many instances when somebody has given notice where it makes me sad not to be able to work with them every day. But I am super excited for them taking on something new and know that they're ready. And I always like to say, this is one of my favorite things that my buddy Jen Derry once said is like, "I can't wait to see what you do next."
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Traci:
It's just a great attitude to have. There are some people that actually need to leave. So we see that for various reasons, they either didn't turn out the way we thought it would turn out, they're not performing in the role, they've outgrown the role and there's no available spot for them, and they're starting to become a little disgruntled or bored or they're just a bad cultural fit. And we start to see that their attitude, their behavior, it's a little toxic.
And as we know, these things spread like wildfire. And typically, you would think an unhappy employee would leave, would quit, but sometimes they either are not looking for a job, they're just phoning it in or they can't find a job and are having trouble getting hired elsewhere, and then they stay in this position. So how do you recognize and deal with an employee that it's become very clear their time is up with your team?
Rob:
Yeah, that's always a tough one because there's always that human part of that, but that's a huge part of what our jobs are, because oftentimes culture at small companies aren't what you promote, it's what you tolerate to have happen. So we have to be really careful about what we tolerate and what we allow to have happen.
One of the things that I think we've talked about this before is I'm a huge believer in no reasonable person should be surprised when their time should be up, if it's for performance reasons or any of the things you're listing here. So that usually, in our case means that their performance reviews have been reflective of that. They've been on a performance improvement plan for some time that has specific things they need to do and specific criteria they need to improve on, and a date in which it has to happen by. So those are all things that exist in that, and that's more of the, hey, this isn't going to end well. Something has to be rectified here, resulting in either a resignation, a suggested resignation or a termination.
The other case that I think is a really interesting one is when somebody's role outgrows them. And that's one of the hardest ones I think, because maybe they were a really productive, good fit for a role, but as the complexity or as the role changed and grew up around them, they no longer have the skill set to do it well. And that's one of the hardest ones, I think, because they're trying to keep up and they're just not able to meet up with the demands of the new role.
And those have been some really interesting cases over the years of actually having really honest conversations like, "I don't think you're happy here and this doesn't seem to be working for either of us. How do we get someplace that will represent and end well for both of us?" And I think that kind of clarity is really important in those kind of conversations to say, "Hey, this has been really good, but it's not serving both of us well anymore. So what's it going to take to get to a place where we're both better off?"
Traci:
Well, I think a great example, and probably you would be familiar with this in your own growth story as an owner is, when you're starting a company or you have a startup venture, whatever it is, you typically have a lot of personalities that are really well suited for a startup venture. Scrappy, they have certain skills, very entrepreneurial, very mission-driven. And as you grow and stabilize as a company and you get to that next level and you start to reevaluate and you need to take the company even higher, those same people that got you to that place, there's usually a handful that, that's not their gifting anymore to scale.
And they typically are the last people to figure it out. What it feels like to them is usually not unhappiness. It's usually uncomfortable, feeling like a coat that doesn't fit them anymore, and they're confused and they don't understand what's happening.
And I saw that a lot at my last company where our growth was so fast and it was really hard for people because they love the company and they wanted to stay, but their skillset didn't fit and they were wildly uncomfortable and failing time and time again because the role, as you said, had outgrown them.
And it's a really hard conversation, but I feel like that the more transparent you are with them, that “I see that you're struggling and your gifting was so perfect for this phase of our company, but that gifting doesn't translate to this next phase of the company. And so what I want to do is support you in finding a new role that most likely will not be within this company, but I want you to be completely open with me during your job search.”
That is a huge gift to people and not a lot of leaders do that. They feel like they have to push them out the door and make them feel uncomfortable. Sometimes people just need permission and need to have that conversation to say, "It's okay if you interview and use me as a reference. You've outgrown this phase, but I think you're fabulous and you're suited for a company that's at this stage, or a company or a role that's going to have you using your gifts."
And I've done that with employees before. And the relief on their face, the sadness that they have to leave the team or the company, but the relief that you're going to be a reference, you're going to support them, you're going to help them, you're going to make a few phone calls, because you value them as a human and you want to just help them find the coat that fits.
Rob:
That's right. And I think in that particular case where somebody's been really valuable and things have changed around them, I've always defaulted to being super generous and being in a place of like, "Listen, this isn't going to work for us long term. Let's be open about this. But why don't you start looking, and you could still be an employee here for a little while. Let's draw this out. I'm okay with making sure you're taken care of during this process."
Traci:
Yeah. And I think for the toxic people that don't respond, that aren't gracious, that really are fighting, you know what I like to say, which is slow to hire, quick to fire. And I think the people that we know can be dangerous to our culture and are not responding to coaching, are not responding to second chances or not responding to any sort of gracious conversation, need to be asked to leave. And it's awful and it's hard and it doesn't feel good, but you are doing what's for the greater good because your team will suffer, you will lose rock stars, it will not end well, and you have to do the hard thing as a leader. And that's one of the hard parts of our job is to say, "It's time. I'm sorry, but you've got to go."
Rob:
Yeah, there's lots of hard parts to this job. I'm not complaining, but it seems like we're always bumping up against those things.
Traci:
Yeah. And the first time that I had to have that conversation, it was, I mean, sweaty palms and hairs up on the back of the neck and to me, it means that you have empathy and you care. But it also meant for me that I was new at that. And when you're first managing and you first realize you have to fire somebody, it's rough. You don't know how the person's going to react.
And especially if you're dealing with a toxic person, you could have a really ugly exchange and you have to remain calm and you have to be the mature one. And you have to lean into your emotional intelligence and you have to say the right things and do the right thing, and be empathetic. I mean, even with toxic people, you know have to say, "I know this is hard. I know. This is not fun for me. I'm sorry, but it's the right thing and I want you to be happy and I want you to be in a place that you're going to be happy." And just help them along the way.
Rob:
Got to take the high road.
Traci:
Yep.
Rob:
All right. Any parting thoughts about offboarding?
Traci:
Well, I think just remember that it's something you and your team have to talk about. Don't let this part of the entire series that we've been talking about, go by the wayside. Have the conversations now about what do our exit interviews look like? Do they have the right questions? How are we managing the intel? Are we making sure we're using it well and leading by example when people are leaving and being gracious and yeah, that's what I would lead people with. How about you?
Rob:
Yeah. I think when we talk about exiting and ending well, what I really like to focus on, is celebrating their time with us. And not only for that person, but for the rest of the team. And to lead by example, by celebrating the time that we spent together, that even though that season has come to a close, it was still meaningful. It was still meaningful for that person, it was meaningful for our company. And I, probably as a leader of a company of almost 60 people, don't have a great handle on who else it was meaningful to, but I know every single person is watching how we treat somebody who we don't have to treat as well anymore.
Traci:
Yeah, that's good words. I like it.
Rob:
Okay. Thanks, Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
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The Overly Human Podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. If you like what you've heard, subscribe and tell your friends to listen. Thanks.
