How to establish a contractor offboarding process
Learn how to offboard contractors to maintain your employer's reputation. CEO for Asia Pacific at Hays, Matthew Dickason, shares how.
What does offboarding mean?
Offboarding refers to the process of transitioning employees out of the company. A smooth and effective onboarding and offboarding process is important for delivering a positive employee experience.
Key insights for ending your relationship with a contractor include:
- Contractor offboarding can often be seen as a "leaky bucket" for many organisations, leading to the loss of valuable intellectual property. It's crucial to have a process in place for revoking access to company data.
- While many organisations have a detailed offboarding process for permanent employees, they often neglect to properly offboard contractors.
- Structured communication and feedback during offboarding can help New Zealand businesses improve knowledge transfer and retain as much IP as possible.
Explore the common pitfalls of contractor offboarding and learn how to create an effective contractor offboarding plan.
Your organisation can lose resources to poor contractor offboarding
Organisations in New Zealand usually hire contractors to complete specific tasks or support large projects. While their tenure at a company can often be quite short, it’s their highly specialised skill set is often why they were bought on board in the first instance, and therefore their contributions are almost always critical.
As the global economy remains uncertain and digital collaboration continues to grow, more organisations in New Zealand now rely on non-permanent workers to build agility in their workforce. This shift makes it increasingly important for NZ companies to rethink their internal processes for new starters – yet one of the most overlooked, but most crucial, aspects is offboarding.
Using a different offboarding process for contractors versus full-time employees can be dangerous for your organisation’s reputation
Improperly offboarding staff can lead to significant asset loss, as well as legal and security risks. Without a formalised offboarding process, you also risk damaging your reputation among temporary and contract workers in New Zealand.
What contractors say and do after leaving your company can directly affect your ability to attract future contractors in the New Zealand market, and also your employer brand. Contractors often share their experiences on online forums, freelance marketplaces and social media platforms. These forums are also the first place that other contractors in New Zealand visit to research potential employers before accepting a project.
Treat your contractors the same way you would treat permanent employees in your offboarding process. Provide them with the recognition and feedback they deserve, just as you would for a full-time recruit.
How to ensure your contractors complete a successful offboarding process
Use structured communication to show your appreciation and champion your company culture
When a contractor nears the end of their contract, let your other workers know about their upcoming departure. Inform everyone as you would a permanent employee, not just the departments who need to be made aware such as IT and HR. As part of this, remind people about the work they have completed and publicly thank them.
By letting colleagues know about their departure, staff have time to share contact details and connect on LinkedIn or via email. This way, contractors are never far away should someone in your organisation need their expertise again. Your team members will also have time to extract all the knowledge, expertise and skills they need from the contractor.
Finally, make contractors feel appreciated. A contractor's last day shouldn't pass without recognition or thanks for their contributions. They may not feel the need to offer your company any future loyalty if you forget them. Organising a simple card, leaving lunch, or a small gift will make them feel like a valued employee.
Ask for feedback to improve your offboarding experience
Conducting an exit interview is your opportunity to get an insight into working at your company. As they are departing the organisation, it's likely they might share more objective areas for improvement. Contractors will also have an informed view of the external market, where you battle for talent daily.
Prepare some questions and use the answers to help build and improve your processes. For example:
- Was the company welcoming and did they feel able to integrate into the culture?
- Did they achieve everything that they hoped to accomplish during their assignment? If not, why?
- How much has this contract enhanced their future employability?
- Would they return to the company if you offered the right role?
- Would they recommend you as an employer?
- Are there any areas where they feel your organisation could have improved their experience?
Feedback forms and exit interviews are also a great time to recover any company assets and close out any final expenses.
Ask if your contractor would like to stay connected
Don't assume your contractor will return at the drop of a hat. Contractors are in control of where they go next. Take the time to let them know about the likelihood of future roles and support them with introductions to valuable connections where possible.
If you do connect with contractors, complete this checklist:
- Add contractors on their professional social profiles, for alumni job adverts.
- Endorse your offboarded contractors for any skills and achievements you've witnessed during their time at your company.
- Provide a detailed reference and constructive feedback – ideally via the recruiter who placed them.
Don't fall at the final hurdle. You'll damage your relationship by rushing a contractor out of the door when they finish their assignment. Take your time, listen to their feedback, and you'll uncover a host of other benefits and opportunities too.
Contractor management and offboarding process: Next steps for your business
Speak to your team to evaluate your current contractor onboarding process. If you feel it needs improving, Hays New Zealand can help. Discuss your contractor management with one of our experts by emailing Hays on our contact page.
You can also read about our contractor employer services here.