By: Shawna Simcik

Right now, there is a significantly heightened focus on employee experience, as recently reported by Willis Towers Watson. Their survey says that 92% of organizations will prioritize employee experience enhancements over the next three years. But, does this also take into account the experience as you offboard your employees?

Typical offboarding processes are checklist-driven and compliance-focused but don't tackle the employee's most significant stress source–job loss. For many companies, the offboarding process is an afterthought – a blind spot. However, this could be an opportunity for many companies struggling with the recruitment and retention of talent.

We often forget that avoiding negative reviews is just as crucial as garnering positive ones. Let's look at decades of research on customer experience. When a customer has a negative interaction with a company or product, they are two to three times more likely to write an angry or negative review than a customer who has a great experience is to post a happy review. Wouldn't we say the same would be true about our outbound employee experience? One in three people has turned down a job offer because of a company's bad online reviews.

Don't ignore the offboarding process if you want to impact the employee experience from recruiting to retention. Here are eight benefits of including compassionate outplacement services within your severance package and, in turn, controlling costs and securing your company reputation.

1. Sustain the morale and demonstrate the company's commitment to remaining employees.
2. Manage former employees' perceptions of the company.
3. Maintain the company's reputation in the community and with customers.
4. Increase the pool of pre-qualified candidates for future hiring.
5. Boost employee referrals from former employees familiar with the corporate culture.
6. Mediate new partnerships and future sales opportunities with former employees that remain in the industry.
7. Reduce the potential for a lawsuit or EEO action.
8. Reduce unemployment costs from the long-term unemployed.

For more information or to learn more about ICC’s services visit our compassionate outplacement service solutions page.

Also, download our webinar on Employee Offboarding to learn how two companies see their offboarding strategy as more than compliance – it's a culture and management mindset.