Offboarding
The Moment in Time
As we built more intentional systems for the beginning of an employee's tenure, like hiring, onboarding, performance, and growth, we also looked toward the moment of departure.
Throughout this work, we invested an incredible amount of time thinking about how people entered Code2040, how they grew, and how they experienced work. This is where a lot of People & Culture teams focus their energy. It is, after all, when someone is considered your employee and your responsibility.
In the end, we couldn't control how every employee experienced leaving Code2040. We couldn't fix broken systems. We couldn't eliminate grief, disappointment, or uncertainty. But we could control how we showed up, and that’s still worth designing for.
What We Were Solving For
The time when someone is leaving the organization is traditionally considered a high risk time - people are unhappy, underperforming, having an issue with their manager, or going through a layoff. In traditional HR the focus is minimizing risk and the process is formulaic and rigid, leaving little room for error or for an employee’s humanity.
Once someone is leaving, the priority shifts toward protecting the company rather than thinking about the employee and their experience. Suddenly, a person you welcomed into the organization, considered a team member, and a part of your organization is viewed as a liability.
We understand why fear surrounds offboarding. It can be one of the most emotionally charged moments in an organization. But we also found ourselves asking: does it really have to be this way?
Too often, offboarding is designed around control rather than care. People are escorted out of buildings, lose access to their work and colleagues without warning, and leave with little clarity about what happens next. Policies are hard to find, benefits are confusing, and people rarely have the opportunity to say goodbye or be recognized for the contributions they made.
We invested significant time and energy into welcoming people to an organization, and we wanted to see if we could replicate that same type of intentionality into helping people leave.
Could we build an offboarding process centered on trust, transparency, abundance, and generosity rather than fear?
Could we support people through career transitions while still protecting the organization?
Could we extend the same organizational values and dignity we applied during hiring and employment though someone’s final day?
Could we create a consistent, replicable process that balanced support with organizational responsibility?
We trusted our hiring process enough to know that we don’t hire people who aren’t great. They might not meet the moment or the expectations we had for their performance - but that doesn’t mean they receive any less support transitioning into their next role.
What We Built
We’ll be honest, this section in particular reflects our attempts to bring aspirations to life. Offboarding through a human centered lens is hard, and offboarding (especially in hard circumstances) is just not something anyone really walks away feeling amazing about.
Rather than treating offboarding as a single meeting, we tried to build an ecosystem of tools and support around a transitioning employee (and their close team members) to guide employees, managers, and the organization through transitions.
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We made the choice to offer transition support to employees who were leaving the organization regardless of their reason (outside of fraud, theft, and harassment).
This meant that if someone quit, they were laid off, or let go due to performance issues, transitioning employees could rely on a certain level of support from the organization.
We wanted to support employees leaving on good terms as much as those who were leaving on either neutral or bad terms. We also wanted to explore whether a transparent, blanket severance policy could encourage proactive departures when staff felt it was time to transition.
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Transitioning out of a job - even on your own terms - is one of the most stressful life events someone can have. We decided that all transitioning employees would receive:
Severance;
Continued healthcare coverage for a set period of months;
Career transition support through an external provider;
The option to purchase their technology at a discounted price.
We knew we couldn't solve every challenge, but we wanted to remove as many unnecessary barriers as we could.
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Every employee had access to our offboarding policies, transition letters, and legal documents throughout their employment - not only after they resigned or were let go. They were accessible internal documents. We believed people should understand what to expect long before they ever needed the information.
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When possible we treated transitions as collaborative planning rather than abrupt exits. Managers, the People & Culture team, and departing employees worked together to determine transition timelines, knowledge transfer, communication plans, project handoffs, and even how they wanted to be celebrated (celebration is an essential part of a good goodbye!). We tried to give a lot of autonomy to an employee who was transitioning out so that it could be on their terms.
Putting It Into Practice
Healthy offboarding begins way before someone gives notice.
We treated offboarding as a natural part of someone’s employment lifecycle. What if we didn’t shroud that moment in secrecy but instead embraced it - turned it from “if you leave” to “when you leave.”
We regularly discussed long-term career aspirations - we helped people get the type of experience they might want for their next stage. Oh you’ve always wanted to lead employee training - and you might want to work in learning development one day? Cool. Here’s an employee training project. Don’t forget to put it on your resume!
Employees knew where to find our offboarding policies before they needed them.
Transition planning aimed to be a collaborative conversation rather than an emergency response.
What Time Taught Us
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No People & Culture structure is a silo! Create systematized offramps for people to leave the organization when they want or you need them to. There’s natural checkpoints we could be utilizing more to have honest conversations about offboarding. After someone’s 90 days, at a 6 month checkpoint, at a 1 year checkpoint, during every performance review cycle. Conversations about offboarding can be naturally woven into conversations about performance - not as punishment - but as an opportunity to try to eliminate surprises on both sides.
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Employers can’t solve the problem of the US having terrible worker support systems. Good healthcare is reliant on private employment. Qualifying for financial assistance during disability is near impossible and often insufficient. We wanted people to have healthcare, some financial runway, and meaningful support after leaving. We built far beyond what the law required, and it never felt like enough. Employers can help bridge those gaps, but they can't eliminate them.
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Making a swift (but intentional) decision to let someone go is oftentimes the most compassionate choice. Long processes that felt intentional and measured were usually just confusing and caused unnecessary strife. Instead of taking months to contemplate if someone is the right fit or putting them through a lengthy management program, take those resources and apply them to their offboarding instead. Don’t drag people through offboarding. Save everybody the heartache.
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Offboarding isn’t only about the person leaving - it’s also very much about the people staying. Transitions and is hard, even in the best of circumstances. Check on the transitioning employee’s closest team members, create space to have collective conversations about transitions, hire an outside facilitator to bring everyone back together afterwards.
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Harm reduction is a term borrowed from the substance recovery movement. It focuses on approaches that aim to minimize the negative health, social, and legal impacts of (in their case) substance use. In our case, it was how we tried to approach offboarding. Eliminating harm in offboarding is impossible (prove us wrong!). We focused instead on trying to decrease uncertainty and fear. To be as transparent, respectful, and as human-centered as possible. To center autonomy and dignity. We wanted people to feel supported in their last experience with us, but ultimately that isn’t fully in our control. People still felt hurt, disappointed, and angry and there was no designing out of that. Stay committed to your intentions even if it feels impossible to do this well.
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HR and legal don’t favor building flexibility into offboarding because they want to control the situation to minimize risk. Increasing flexibility may increase risk but can also disproportionately improve employee experience and organizational reputation. Introducing additional risk in the offboarding process requires giving up control, but the reality of separation is that it is often fraught regardless of approach. You design based on your values and have systems in place for when things go wrong.
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Every person will leave an organization at some point. Use these as opportunities for conversation and learning. Debrief someone’s employment as you would a project. Do exit interviews. Take the opportunity to deepen your understanding of your organization, your employees, and the change you’d like to make.
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Offboarding isn't black and white. Someone might have been underperforming and they still likely made meaningful contributions to the organization. They probably built relationships, made people laugh, and helped shape the team. We're Black and Latinx people - we celebrate. We laugh. We tell stories. We mark important transitions together, even the hard ones. We exist in relationship with one another. We have history together. That deserves to be acknowledged and honored.
What We’d Tell You
Design offboarding with the same intentionality as onboarding. How people leave your organization is just as much a reflection of your culture as how they enter it.
Be transparent long before someone leaves. Employees shouldn't have to wonder what will happen if they resign, are laid off, or aren't the right fit. Make your policies accessible, explain your philosophy, and reduce uncertainty before people ever need the information.
Treat transitions as collaborative whenever possible. Not every departure will allow for flexibility, but when it does, involve employees in planning timelines, knowledge transfer, communication, and celebration. People deserve agency during major life transitions.
Move with clarity instead of dragging things out. Long performance improvement or transition periods aren't always more compassionate. Sometimes they simply prolong uncertainty for everyone involved. If someone isn't the right fit, make thoughtful decisions and then support them well through the transition.
Accept that offboarding may never feel good. You can build generous policies, communicate clearly, provide practical support, and treat people with dignity (your version of it). And someone may still leave hurt, disappointed, or angry. That doesn't necessarily mean you failed. The goal isn't to make offboarding feel good. The goal is to make it as transparent, respectful, and as human-centered as possible.
Remember that people are watching. Every offboarding experience teaches the rest of your organization what your values really look like in practice. Your culture isn't defined only by how you treat your employees during their time with you. It's also defined by how you say goodbye.
Support your employees who are staying. We are relational beings and transitions are hard! Check on people, create collective spaces for conversation, bring outside people in to help you navigate and reground.
CELEBRATE PEOPLE! Remember that people are more than their last performance review. Every employee leaves behind more than a job description. They leave relationships, memories, lessons, and contributions that helped shape your organization. Even when someone isn't the right long-term fit, that doesn't erase the good they brought while they were there. When appropriate, make space to acknowledge that. People deserve to leave knowing they mattered.for.