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What if your company culture wasn’t just an HR buzzword but the secret weapon to scaling your business?
Welcome to Kan Talk Kulture, the podcast that dives deep into how remarkable company cultures are intentionally built and how they can transform your team, your business, and your bottom line.
Hosted by Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and a passionate expert in people, culture, and leadership, this show is designed for business owners, CEOs, HR professionals, and anyone who believes that empowered people are the key to long-term success.
Each episode features real conversations with inspiring CEOs, business leaders, and culture champions who share how they’ve shaped their team environments alongside case studies, practical tips, and bold questions that challenge the status quo.
Whether you're looking to boost employee engagement, create a high-performance team, or align your people with your vision, this podcast will help you connect the dots between culture and growth.
At Kan Kulture, we believe in Kindness, Understanding, Learning, Trust, Uniqueness, Respect, and Evolving, and this podcast brings those values to life.
If you're ready to turn your team into your biggest brand ambassadors and create a workplace people love, this is the podcast for you.
Find out more at www.kankulture.com
Hi, I'm Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and welcome to Kan Talk Kulture. In this podcast, I sit down with some of Australia's most progressive founders and CEOs to explore the heart. Of their company cultures, what drives them, what they value, and what it's really like to work for the companies they lead.
You'll also find occasional episodes packed with practical HR insights to help you build safer, stronger, and more trusted workplaces. So whether you're a new team member back, getting to know your workplace, curious about creating remarkable company cultures. Or just wanting to know more about implementing HR best practice.
You are in the right place. Let's dive in.
Hello and welcome to Kan Talk Kulture. I'm Kylie Neal, and joining me today is Georgina Walker. Welcome Georgina.
Thank you, Kylie.
Today we are going to be talking about off-boarding with integrity. Mm-hmm. Offboarding is the final chapter of the employee experience. What do you think are the secret ingredients of offboarding?
Just like in onboarding the wow moments or moments that matter. I think they should be brought through to offboarding as well. If an employee gives their two weeks notice, it's not. By have those last lunch dates with them, have a team coffee, have a celebration that they've been an employee and worked as a part of your team.
I think they're, yeah, the, the moments that matter that they'll. Take with them, they'll share their positive experience with people as well.
Yes.
And the remaining of the team will also see how they've been treated.
Yes, absolutely. It's true. You, you raise a really good point about it kind of mirroring. But the other side of onboarding, you know, a lot of companies pay a lot of attention to how they onboard their employees, but.
They, when someone resigns, it's almost like, okay, well we are gonna focus on the next person that's coming in the organization. And they lose sight of that person that has committed however long that they've been on their journey with the organization. One, we have a client that, uh, always said to me when I started working with them, we celebrate people when they leave, and that has really stuck with me because it is really important.
Organizations are just a vehicle. I've, I've mentioned this in another episode, but they are just a vehicle of someone's career and. People don't stay at organizations for 10, 20, 30 years like they used to. No, people are a lot more transient and that's the nature of the nature of the working world these days.
Mm-hmm. But to be able to understand that and respect that and really act with integrity to, if someone's going to another position, it's because it's not because they harbor. It's not always because they harbor any ill feelings, but they've found something that suits their needs better for them at that time of their life.
Hopefully the organization has given them the skills, the stepping stone for them to get. A bigger and better role, you know, and I think, you know, we're talking about resignation, so yeah. Voluntary here, but absolutely we need to put structures around what our off-boarding processes look like. Exit interviews are the best feedback that you can possibly get from an employer within the business.
But not too many companies do well or at all.
No.
Mm,
not well, not at all. They ask the wrong questions, they don't. They dismiss a lot. A lot of leaders dismiss feedback because they think, oh, well, they're disgruntled. They're going, it doesn't matter what they think because they're leaving. What they say comes really unguarded a lot of the time.
They're not afraid to speak up. They're often not afraid to be honest. So being able to get insights about their experience in their role, for example. Can be really insightful for the next person coming into the job.
Mm. At At the same time though, I don't think anything should come too much of a surprise in an exit interview.
If you're doing your one 20 day performance reviews,
yes,
you should be having these open, transparent conversations. So it shouldn't be a, a huge shock when a person resigns and they've got. A myriad of things to bring up, for example.
Yeah.
But yeah, an exit interview for me kind of closes the loop to the recruitment cycle.
Yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is a really good, you know, we, we, when we talk about performance reviews, we talk about the opportunity for the employee to reflect on experience. Mm-hmm. Exit interviews, I think do the same thing. They enable the employee to have a tool, a process, a space, call it whatever you like, for them to answer the questions in a meaningful way that enables them to really reflect on their experience, what they like, what they didn't like, why they're leaving, what they're going to, whatever the questions may be.
But an exit interview is only part of the onboarding experience. Yeah. Some of the other. Pretty critical things is just like with onboarding, where we say we need to make sure that they've got a computer set up, that any passes are there, that any keys are cut, that they've got everything that they need, and it's all organized.
Like that shows confidence, efficiency, trust. When we look at off-boarding. It's the same process. Just in reverse. Yes. Agreed. Like, are we getting company property back? Do we know what assets that employee has? Are we able to commun communicate effectively what final pay will look like? Mm-hmm. And when that payment will be made, you know, there is the celebration side of it, but there's also the process side.
And it takes not just the leader, not just hr, but there's all these trigger points across it. Payroll. HR leader comes to the organization, there's a process that needs to happen to make sure that that employee is leaving with a sense of celebration rather than with a sense of detachment.
Definitely.
Which is what happens if there's no process in place. It's just like, oh yeah, we'll just wait until their last day and then as long as they've done a handover document, we are good to go.
Yeah. But that's, that's the other thing as well, a, a good handover document. You know, a knowledge share. They're not just leaving with projects open.
What are they working on? What needs to be passed on? Really understanding and closing the loop there.
Yes, yes. So, Georgina, I'm curious, like what experiences have either you had or have you observed in the leaders of our clients where they haven't managed off-boarding well, mm.
I, the last company I worked at, I won't name names.
We often had it ask where a particular laptop was or who had the red key, who had the blue key. And there was no visibility of if a laptop was returned. And I, it just gobsmacked me. Um, but I think a lot of the clients we work with, because we've implemented great off-boarding, haven't really faced too many.
Off-boarding challenges. Mm. Yeah. The, my main feedback for off-boarding are the exit interviews because I feel like it's a really great time for the employee to almost let rip Yeah. They feel free to say whatever they want to say because it's, it's kind of. They're leaving anyway, so I think that's really great.
Yes. I actually had an experience a couple of weeks ago with an exiting employee. This employee was, had asked for the exit interview questions in advance, which was great because you know, she was the kind of person that. Needed to know the questions. So she really reflected on them and she asked, she answered the questions in a lot of detail, so it was really great feedback.
She was quite disgruntled. Mm, could you say? Mm-hmm. And when I read the feedback, she sent it to me about an hour before the actual exit interview, so about an hour before I was speaking with her. So I read through it and my, my, my initial thought was. I want to tidy some of these things up for her. I want to respond to her feedback.
I want to almost justify, 'cause there was things about culture that she was talking about, about leadership and things that she didn't know were being worked through. For example, and my, my initial. Gut reaction was, I need to go in and defend. I need to justify, I need to make things right in her mind. And then I was like, no.
This exit interview is her space of reflection. Yeah. She is leaving the organization and we want to celebrate her leaving. Mm. We don't want it to be about, you are not right here and, and, you know, kind of dismiss or deflect or defend. He said, he said, she said. Anything that, with the feedback that she had given.
So I went into that meeting with that in mind. I'm like, we want to celebrate you. So I made it very clear to her that acknowledged her feedback, celebrated her feedback, thanked her for her feedback. I did not go into. Whether it was right or wrong, because at that stage it, it doesn't matter. No, it was just, what's the point?
It's her feedback. Exactly. It's her experience and we celebrate her for who she was within the business, and we wish her all the best as she. Leaves the organization. And I think that to me was a really, was a really interesting moment where I had to catch myself. And if that's me as a HR professional, you can imagine the types of exit interviews that may happen between leaders and direct reports that don't have.
That type of insight with what experience, what the experience means for the employee. Hmm. So did she leave on a good note then? She did leave on a good note. Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, she did feel celebrated. You know, she did. She thanked me for my time and the role that both you and I play in, in that client.
So it was a positive experience. But I do feel on another note with. Getting feedback like that sometimes it's really hard and I always share the feedback very openly with the CEO and the hiring manager. It's not just something that sits with HR and stays with hr. It's really important that that information is shared and sometimes it's hard for them If, if, say, hrs done the exit interview and they share it with the manager.
I think sometimes a manager sits there and reads it and you know, almost kind of like sinks down going a bit of a step.
Ah, yeah. It can be, could I have done something? Yes. Yeah.
And when they're leaving there, they're often quite open and honest and. Seemingly, sometimes a little bit brutal. Mm. If they're unhappy and they're, they're, they've been with the organization for a long time.
They want to share their experiences, but they are leaving for a reason. Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that's the flip side, you know, not to sugarcoat, but to accept that that's their experience and they have absolutely every right. We're seeking that feedback from them. Whatever they share with us, we need to be really respectful.
And that's the integrity part. I think that is like owning that feedback with integrity.
Mm.
Not just dismissing it as, oh well she's disgruntled and she's on her way out, but going. Thank you for your feedback. Yeah. It, it doesn't all need to be positive. We don't all need self celebrations and for people to say really positive things about us when they're on the way out.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's, you know, coping a deflection on, on their part, who, who knows, but it doesn't matter In that space, we need to be cognizant of respecting whatever feedback's given. And
that's one side of the exit interview, but the other side of the exit interview is. For recruitment to take that feedback from the leaving staff member and to really let it sink in and use that information for the next job in job briefing or job description.
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes it is for the leader to tidy up their backyard, for of a better word, and you know, to reflect on those experiences because. Let's say that there is negative feedback in the exit interview that negativity has most likely been spoken about with the team, and you know, most likely has been spoken about on several occasions within the team.
Yeah, so a leader. Being able to have the professional acumen to digest the information, to see how it's playing out and to see what needs to be changed, tidied up, whatever it might be for a new person to come into that environment is really, really important. Yeah. What about last day?
What about last day?
I think, I think it should be, it's, it's. Going to be all the emotions. You'll go,
you'll go
through all of them. It, it should be fun. It should be happy. It should be sad. I mean, depending on the way you're leaving, but you'll, you'll ride the wave. Yes. But to those who resign or to employers. Leave on a good note because you never know when you'll cross paths with that person again.
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do never know and it's, it's not just about, um, you know, 'cause I think we often hear people say, oh, I want to leave on a good note because I want to get a reference, or I don't want people speaking negatively of me. But I think it's a lot deeper than that, like being able to.
Have the conversations that need to be had respectfully, respectfully with integrity. Mm-hmm. Because off-boarding is about integrity and like onboarding off-boarding is a very emotive process. Mm-hmm. Uh, I had a, a leader that's leaving an organization reach out to me and say, I just don't know how to behave in these last couple of weeks.
I get that all the time. Yeah. They don't know how to behave. They don't know how to show up because it's like they. Are not gonna be around to progress a lot of things, but they're working on a lot of things, but they want to be closing things off and not opening things up. Mm-hmm. So they, they don't know where they sit.
They don't know where they sit emotionally. Mm-hmm. And they dunno where they sit task wise. Yeah. It's,
it's hard. Same, same boat for the employee. Some people retract in their work, they don't put as much effort in, but you have others that are still go, go, go until the last moment. And that is purely emotionally driven, I think.
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. You do get those ones that want to like write. Perfect handover docker. Mm-hmm. With every written down so they can have closure to know that they've done everything that they can to set up for the next person. Yeah. And then you have other people that just completely disconnect.
Mm-hmm. And just, mm-hmm. Time. Mm-hmm. Just, just time. Just wait for that time to pass by 5:00
PM Friday, I'm done.
Yeah. Yeah. And the more that leaders can have some awareness around that, I think the better the experience is gonna be for all parties, definitely. For the team around who are seeing. Resigned person, you know, kind of sit there tapping their pen and just watching time go by.
Or to the other degree, like making sure that they're still managing their energy, that they're still getting some positive insight into what they show up to do every day because you know. There is still probably passion for what they're doing. It's just not the right environment for them anymore.
Yeah.
So there is a lot to off-boarding and it is a really nurturing time. Psychological safety, I think plays a big part in how a person is treated during their O off-boarding experience.
Yeah.
And. As
equally as important as
the onboarding
experience.
Yes, yes, yes. How you say goodbye is how you should say hello.
Oh, okay. And on that note, goodbye.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Kan Talk Kulture. Thank you, Georgina. Thanks for having me. See you next time. Thanks for joining me on Kan Talk Kulture. I'm Kylie Anne Neil. I hope today's episode gave you a clear review into the values driving your workplace.
All sparked new ideas about building a remarkable company culture. If you're a founder or CEO interested in sharing your culture story, or if you are looking to build a safer, stronger, and more trusted workplace, let's connect. Visit Kan Kulture.com. That's K-A-N-K-U-L-T-U-R e.com. To learn more, please hit that subscribe button to hear more real conversations with founders and CEOs and hands-on episodes full of people.
First culture advice. I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode.