A structured and personal offboarding process using the Appical platform

Offering employees a good send-off is an important part of the employee experience. For that reason, it is important to have a structured program for departing employees. Such a program allows the transfer of tasks and knowledge and gives HR time to compile sufficient feedback. This is exactly what ZEISS did in their offboarding process, which uses the Appical offboarding platform.

Result with Appical

"We get more extensive feedback than during one exit interview."

Uses Appical for

Onboarding Offboarding

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International leader in optics

ZEISS has been providing solutions in the field of optics and opto-electronics for more than 170 years. They are a global leader in their field and develop technological innovations for the semiconductor, automotive and mechanical industries. ZEISS products are also used in biomedical research and medical technology as well as in spectacle, camera and cinematography lenses, binoculars and planetarium systems.

ZEISS has more than 33,000 employees worldwide, of whom 150 work in the Benelux countries.

Introduction

In 2016, the organisation started using the Appical platform for the onboarding of new hires. This case however, explores the end of an employment relationship: the offboarding. Again, the Appical platform plays an important role. Sasja Luijk, HR Manager Benelux, shows us what a good offboarding process at ZEISS looks like.

A short walkthrough: the ZEISS offboarding app

The team responsible for the offboarding program carefully looked at the topics that should always be discussed. Those are topics that we in our role can actively change, based on the feedback received, to improve the employee retention rate.

Welcome to the Offboarding app

The ZEISS Offboarding app contains a personal offboarding journey for each employee. The start screen immediately shows you how far along the process you are, and which elements (stories) you still have to complete.

Offboarding: Step by step

The offboarding app comprises a number of sections or blocks, so that a departing employee is not inundated with all the information at once. They can simply log in whenever they want and continue their offboarding journey.

Feedback

Important part of the offboarding process at ZEISS is gathering honest feedback. Departing employees use the app to complete their offboarding program at any given time or place. The app allows departing employees to complete the questionaire and give feedback at home or while communting, so their is more time and headspace to reflect on the questions. The questions can be adjusted depending on the location, position or team.

Open questions

By using the option to create an additional feedback field to provide feedback about topics that are not already preselected. This results in more detailed information that the team uses to improve the employee experience and employee retention rate.

A structured offboarding experience

“Our offboarding at ZEISS lacked structure, specifically the exit interviews. We had a form with questions, but the entire process – from the moment someone would indicate they were leaving until their last day at work – was not very structured.”

To improve the offboarding process, we started with a number of important questions:

Who is responsible for the entire process, the supervisor or HR?
What can we learn from the departing employee?
How can we get honest and open feedback?
Are all departing employees required to give feedback?

The team from ZEISS decided to include all our departing employees in the offboarding process; even those employees who leave on a less than voluntary basis can also provide valuable feedback.

“We felt it was important to get feedback about our culture, development opportunities, the supervisor/management, the working conditions and about employee benefits.“

Sasja, Luijk, HR Manager at ZEISS Benelux

Why did you decide on a digital tool?

“The advantage of the Appical app is that the employees can give their feedback at any time during the offboarding process,” says Luijk. “The result is that we get more extensive feedback than during one exit interview. An exit interview still forms a part of the offboarding process, but it no longer specifically focuses on getting feedback.”

One important option in the offboarding app is that the employees can add an additional feedback field, in which they can discuss other issues than the themes that we had added. We see that many departing ZEISS employees make use of this option. The app also allows us to send employees an automatic reminder if they have not yet submitted their feedback.

Advantages of the onboarding app

The most common feedback is that people feel that it is super easy to give feedback via the app
Employees can give feedback at a time that suits them, this results in more and more honest feedback
We receive valuable feedback to implement future improvements
The entire process is clear for all the stakeholders and all the roles and responsibilities are defined
Appical allows you to add a team photograph or video and personalised text. The goal is to offer each departing employee a personalised experience