Onboarding is an important focus for HR.

From ensuring new hires have all the proper vetting and paperwork to providing them an introduction to their new responsibilities and the company culture, onboarding can be a key tool in retaining top talent. However, a less common HR task could be just as vital in building a strong workforce: offboarding.

When workers leave the company after a seasonal position, employers are missing a valuable opportunity if they simply bid them goodbye and get back to business as usual. With a strategic approach to offboarding that prioritizes support and communication, organizations are able to build a pipeline of future talent while emphasizing a company culture that values the unique contributions of all employees.

Benefits of offboarding

Especially in today’s market, finding and retaining top talent is a challenging task, one that requires HR and business leaders to cultivate relationships with candidates and employees. When workers move on from their seasonal roles, that approach shouldn’t change; the relationships they’ve built at the company can be a boon both for the organization and the former employee.

Employers that effectively offboard temporary workers are gaining the loyalty of an important demographic: talent that has already learned the ropes of the company and could be primed to return when needed. When hire-heavy seasons roll around again, if the company has invested the time and attention needed to offboard employees in a way that demonstrates the company cares about their success, those employees could be a talent pool at the ready. At Integrity Staffing Solutions, for instance, many of our temporary positions have the potential to become full-time, so having a pipeline of possible candidates who have the skills and experience to take on the job is a time- and money-saver for hiring managers. What’s more, when former workers recognize the investment the company is willing to make in their satisfaction, they are going to be more willing to be ambassadors for your brand.

How to support your seasonal employees

Like with many aspects of the relationship between employees and employers, an effective offboarding process often comes down to the work of managers. As the representatives of the company, these leaders are integral in bringing the offboarding strategy to fruition.

From the start of temporary workers’ tenure with the organization, managers should remain transparent about their expectations: Workers should know when their role will wrap up, how the offboarding process works, what support they will receive and the potential for future employment. The more upfront company representatives are with these workers from the start, the more credible and trustworthy the relationship they will develop can be. As employees get ready to depart, managers can be proactive in offering connections to other positions within the company and in lending their support as a reference for future roles. On the back end, managers should evaluate all employees as their term with the company ramps down and develop a comprehensive list of the talent they would like to see return if given the opportunity, ultimately working with HR and other business leaders to document this information.

Just as employees are likely eager to keep all of their options open, employers should take the same approach. As organizations everywhere face hiring challenges, talent pools like seasonal employees shouldn’t be overlooked. By investing in relationships with these workers, employers are able to create another avenue for hiring, while deepening their commitment to a culture that values all workers, no matter where they are in the employee lifecycle.