Farewell to the employee

One of my friends who is heading the India division of one of the US based organization asked me a question. Her company is small, with around 20 employees only. The company has seen some bad times during last year’s recession, when she released more than 75% of her employees. Though the company is still trying to overcome the recession storm, still she has started the recruitment and has rehired many of the old employees. But the attrition rate is not very less, employees are looking for bigger and better pastures. The average age of employee in her company is somewhere around 8 months.

One of her performing employee has resigned as she is getting married and moving to the new location. She was working with the company since last two years. Few employees, who were working with her since long, are in favour of giving her a farewell. Now the director of the company asked me what she should do. She was not in favour of making this as a precedence of giving farewell to employee, as the attrition rate is high being the average duration of employee, less than a year. She was really worried about the cost implications.

The first and foremost, I asked her to decide whether she wants to give the farewell or not.

If she wants to give an elaborate farewell, please go ahead for a lunch at some restaurant, but involve all the employees, and not just a bunch of people closer to that particular employee as this will be organizational initiative.

If she is not, she can also pick on the below mentioned ideas, which are not very expensive but will result in goodwill which is far valuable.

1. Call for a pot luck party in the office where, few chosen ones or every employee brings some specific dish to eat and the organization should sponsor a gift for the departing employee.

2. Organise gathering of employees over snacks.

3. Ask every one to write best wishes and personal messages to her on a plain T-shirt. This would be inexpensive as well as apersonal gift.

4. Ask the collegues of the leaving employee to speak something about her on a video and burn this CD to gift her. You can play the CD in the gathering, where she would feel very happy hearing good things from her fellow colleagues.

Advantages of organizing a farewell party

* The employee who is leaving feels good, that his work was appreciated and acknowledged by the organization. At such gatherings, emotional bonding takes place which is very necessary, especially for the smaller organizations.

* It creates goodwill among the remaining employees towards the organization.

* It’s a good platform to highlight the positives of the employee, so he feels happy about her stay. A happy employee, leaving an organization is a good source for publicity of your organization.

* At such gatherings, special qualities of a good employee should be highlighted to emphasize the attributes appreciated in the organization. This may include performance, longer stay with the organization or any other thing worthy of mentioning.

When the farewell party is not appropriate

* If the organization has asked the employee to leave, due to any reason.

* If the employee has been with the organization for a very short duration, lets say for few days or just one month, without any special contribution towards the company.