HR9

9.- EXIT MANAGEMENT

EMPLOYEE SEPARATIONS

What are they?

Employee separations occur when employees cease to be members of the organization and are handled differently from outplacement. Managers should have thoughtful policies in place to handle any outflow of Human Resources. Employee Separations have costs:

But they also have benefits:

TYPES OF EMPLOYEE SEPARATIONS

• Voluntary: this occurs when an employee decides, for either personal or professional reason, to end their contract/relationship with the employer/company. They can be either avoidable or unavoidable; 80% are avoidable and due to staffing mistakes.

• Retirements: it differs from quitting. It usually happens at the end of an employee’s career and result in the individual receiving retirement benefits from the company/organization.
• Involuntary: occur when management decides to terminate its relationship with an employee. Happens due to : economic necessity or a poor fit between the employee and the organization. HR staff should always make sure that the dismissed employee receives proper “processing” and avoid claims of wrongful termination. They include discharges (result of poor performance or repeated bad behaviors), layoffs (cost cuts from the organization), downsizing and rightsizing (reduce the scale of business or reorganizing the employees).

MANAGING EARLY RETIREMENTS

There are two features to this:

1. Package of financial incentives: makes it more attractive for senior employees to retire earlier than planned.
2. Open window : restricts eligibility to a fairly short period of time and the incentives are no longer available after the window is closed.

Early retirement policies can reduce the size of the company’s workforce substantially.

This issue has to be managed in a way that eligible employees do not feel like they are being forced to retire and so file an age discrimination claim.

MANAGING LAYOFF

Usually, organizations will turn to layoffs when they cannot reduce it’s labor costs by any other means.

After the decision to implement layoffs is made, managers should concern themselves with the outplacement of the former employees.

Some alternatives to layoffs include freezing employment, not renewing contract workers and encouraging employees to take the time off voluntarily. Here are some major alternatives to layoffs that managers can use to reduce labor costs and protect the full-time employees.

There should always be a record of every move and detail before letting go an employee, there should be proof of any mistake or wrongdoing that will justify the termination clearly and legally.

OUTPLACEMENT

It is always a good idea for the firm to use outplacement services to help the terminated employees to cope with their emotions and minimize the amount of time they are unemployed.

It is important to reduce the morale problems for employees who are about to be laid off so that they remain productive until they leave the firm and the amount of litigation caused by separated employees is minimized. Also, assisting separated employees in finding comparable jobs and concentrate on moving the organization forward. Provide outplacement can protect an employer’s reputation and help the organization be known as a coveted employer.