The first step is to have a call about the terms, dates, conditions, and all the details. Everyone who will be involved in the offboarding participates in the call and we lay out the future plan of action. 

The next thing is to settle external relations this team member has. Our freelancer talks to all the clients, and either transfers them to other team members or closes the contracts. The managers help at this stage, ensuring clients’ happiness and that all the tasks are completed as promised.

After that we make sure all the team member’s internal obligations are closed. We have Profile Assistants here to help finish everything from the to-do list.

Now it’s time to disassociate this person with our agency at Upwork. For your company, it could be the tax authority you need to inform, for example or any other agency that is involved officially in the procedures. In our case, we go to our Bidders who check that there are no open interviews or proposals, so that Upwork allows us to let the person out of the agency.

Here comes an important part that some companies, especially small ones, often don’t do – getting honest feedback from the person. Our HR sends a short questionnaire to the person leaving the agency. We ask them to give a written response or take a short video about their experience as team members. This is a great opportunity to hear their true feedback, reasons for leaving, and their time in the agency, that we can use to optimize and improve.

Then the person sends a good-bye message in our group chat and the team wishes them many great things.

There is only one thing left, which is very important and many companies often fail to do it. We need to delete this person’s accounts from all our work and communication channels, email, notion, etc. Do you sometimes get annoying messages from the company you worked for 5 year ago? Well, this step will ensure it doesn’t happen.