When an employee leaves, it’s almost always the case that HR are expected to pick up the vast majority of the administration. Contractual terms need to be checked, remaining holiday entitlement calculated, company assets reclaimed, exit interviews organised, colleagues and customers informed, P45s issued and replacements found, alongside a host of other important, but time-consuming activities.
Cezanne HR is a HR systems that doesn’t take away the personal involvement that’s required to ensure that everything is managed smoothly, and in line with contractual and legislative requirements. But, it will help you manage leavers in a much more straight-forward and professional way.
Update records
Once the leave date has been agreed, simply follow the leaver process in Cezanne HR to make sure that key employment records are updated, and there aren’t any untaken holiday or incomplete processes hanging around. As an HR administrator, you have the option to override end dates — perhaps to take into account that you’ve agreed to continue providing certain benefits beyond the agreed leaving date.
Once the leave date has passed, the employee will automatically disappear from all your active employee screens and reports, their login permissions terminated, and your billing will be adjusted too. The leaver process doesn’t remove the employee’s data from your system. It’s obviously important that you keep information so that you can refer back to it, at least for a while.
Calculate absence entitlements
If an employee still has unused holiday entitlements to take; has holiday booked after their leave date; or has taken more leave than they’ve accrued so far in the holiday year, you’ll be able to see these easily. Depending on your contractual terms and business requirements, you could ask them to use up their holiday; agree payment in lieu of time off; or arrange to deduct money from their final salary. As the HR administrator, you’ll be able to book holiday on their behalf, or make manual adjustments to entitlements if required.
Record correspondence
Notice letters, termination agreements, references and other documents can be securely stored in the system, alongside original employment contracts, so can be easily reviewed if necessary. Should you want employees to confirm they’ve received and read the information you send them, there’s also the option of using the document tracking functionality.
Support best practice
If you have a well-documented approach to managing exits, whether it’s a staff resignation, or someone you’ve decided to let go, you’ll find that things tend to go more smoothly. With Cezanne HR, you’ve the option to share documents like this in a secure area in your Cezanne HR portal, or email them to responsible managers, with tracking to make sure they know they need to read – and act on – the document you’ve sent.
Stay on top of key dates
With Cezanne HR, you can set up multiple leave notifications, so that it’s simpler to stay on top of key dates. This is especially helpful when there’s a long notice period, or a number of people need to be involved. For example, the people management software can act as a nudge to remind a line manager that they need to book an exit interview; that IT need to reclaim the company laptop; or payroll prepare the final paperwork.
Manage gardening leave
When gardening leave is agreed, it’s likely that you’ll want to handle things a little different. For example, to ask employees to hand back their company mobile, or notify IT that logins to key systems, such as your CRM or Financials, should be shut down from when the leave starts – but before all of their other employment rights end. With Cezanne HR, you can set up a special leave notification to deal with these situations, so that the right people are informed automatically.
You’ll also be able to add an event in Cezanne HR’s calendar, to show that the employee is out of the office and, if they are a manager, put in place alternative authorisation routes. That way activities they would have been responsible for, such as approving holiday requests, can continue to run smoothly.
Re-organising reporting relationships
When managers leave, it may trigger a change in roles and responsibilities that can extend across several departments, either on a temporary or permanent basis. The easiest way to reflect the new reporting relationships and approval workflows — and pick up on any processes that may have begun, but are not yet completed, such as performance reviews — is to use the “move manager” wizard in Cezanne HR. This steps you through the implications of every move, helping to ensure new roles are recorded correctly, key activities don’t get overlooked and processes continue to run smoothly.
Making more of exit interviews
Exit interviews can be enormously valuable. But only if they take place, and the information that’s gathered is easy to review and report on. That’s why many of Cezanne HR’s customers use the performance management module to run leaver surveys, or support leaver interviews. Since the system automatically triggers reminders, activities are less likely to get overlooked. And, customers benefit from a structured framework for gathering information that makes analysis much more meaningful and straight-forward.
Sue Lingard
Sue studied Personnel Management at the London School of Economics before taking on management roles in the travel, recruitment and finally HR software industry. She's particularly interested in how technologies enable HR teams - and the people they support - to work better together.
