Most organisations have learnt the value of putting time, effort and resource into onboarding/inducting new joiners, but few have mastered the art of saying goodbye with a hug and a wave.

With the advent of Trip Advisor-style Employer feedback sites such as Glassdoor, and people merrily asserting their views on social media, treating a departing employee with grace is becoming more and more important.

Organisations market themselves, internally and externally, as being focussed on and invested in the well-being and development of their people, but when those same people leave the business, whether by choice or push, they are treated as poorly as if they were former members of a cult or gang.

I am proud to say that on many occasions I have been thanked by departing employees for handling the process in a human way and allowing them to leave with dignity, even in some of the most difficult of circumstances. Sadly, this has often been in the face of adversity, with business stakeholders metaphorically screaming “burn the heretic” and waving pitch forks at the departing employee.

I understand that expending energy on potential and current employees outweighs the effort affordable to former employees. However, treating someone who leaves as a pariah in all but the most extreme cases, is not a good idea for several reasons:

• You might want and need them back at some point in the future and whether they wish to boomerang will depend on how they feel they were treated previously
• They may have some vital information swimming about in their heads that you need at a later date
• They may go on to bigger and better things and become a competitor, client, or worse – your boss!
• The ‘survivors’ will see how you treat people when they leave, and may question the honesty of your ‘we are a family’ proclamations as a result.

Over recent years, the giving of employment references has generally descended to a cursory confirmation of dates and titles across the board, and not even confirmation of the reason for leaving, in fear of retribution for giving a bad reference.

This is not just unnecessary (you can only be in trouble for giving a ‘bad’ reference if you can’t show that what you said to be true) it’s damaging to businesses. I accept that the giving of references is time consuming and the benefit to the organisation may not be apparent. However, as it has now become the norm to give as little information as possible, employers have thrown in their strongest card when dealing with a potentially departing employee as the threat of ‘if you do XYZ you won’t be eligible for a reference’ no longer stands. There is no legal obligation to provide employment references but unless enough companies choose to buck the trend and take us back to the days when it was generally accepted that to receive references from other organisations you need to be prepared to give them, we will all continue to miss out on a great opportunity to say goodbye fairly and honestly and have a better idea who we are saying hello to.