Thoughtful exit interviews: how to offboard yourself
My summer work project ended with a bang last week. I was given a day’s notice via email and asked to quickly hand over to the new in-house copywriter.
I get it — budgets and a new project manager, but it still took me by surprise as we were in the final stages of the work. I also felt a handover was a bit out of my scope as a freelancer — surely this was the PM’s job? So I asked my hiring manager for advice. She backed me up and said she’d speak to the PM. I told the copywriter I was happy to chat but checking the process first (also not clear if I’d be paid for this).
I was onboarded quickly to fill a gap during the holidays and the project ended as abruptly. Here I am three months later, waiting to be paid for work that started in July. I enjoyed the work but the transactional nature of it has left me feeling frustrated and a bit fed up — where’s the humanity? All a bit soulless. Adland can be like this and it’s something I struggle with. I like to build relationships with the team and see the final end product.
It’s made me realise how important offboarding and exit interviews are with clients, so I have a process and checklist for my personal sanity and mental health…
- Review the final project — what went well, what could have been improved?
- Get a testimonial from the PM.
- Say thank you to the team (people move around all the time, you never know when you’ll be working with them again). Ask to see the end product if possible — for my portfolio.
- Send the final invoice.
- Give feedback to HR and ask them to fill in a quick survey if they have time.
- Leave a review on GlassDoor to help others.
I may not get a response from the PM, but at least I’ve wrapped things up my side.
Onboarding and offboarding is something companies need to think about more as the freelance revolution grows, and they need to manage freelancers at scale. Even better, hire a Head of Remote as my hiring manager was in a different country and not involved day-to-day.
Good communication is crucial for remote teams and having a handbook means new starters feel connected and can jump right in. Otherwise, it’s easy to feel disconnected and undervalued — which won’t foster good work.
I’m also wondering if I need to tighten up my T&Cs and ask for a part payment upfront with overseas suppliers (I’ve been burned in the past). I’m grateful for the NUJ — if I end up chasing payment I know they have my back. Union membership is worth every penny.
Is it just me, or is going out exhausting? I went out for a meal last week at a new restaurant, and we ended up sharing a table with a group of guys who’ve just moved here. Sensory overload. Too bright, too loud, too many people. I found it a bit overwhelming, so I guess I’m just out of practice.
I’m not alone — a piece by Lisa Milbrand on why socialising is more exhausting now for both introverts and extroverts and how to get your mojo back.
Wishing you a relaxing and restful World Mental Health Day🎗 🧠
I’m not going to overload myself this quarter. I’m focusing on what I have, taking care of myself, reflection and R&D — the key to the productivity puzzle, Bojo…
P.S. The most beautiful thing I’ve heard lately.
★ Global Study on Freelancing: 75+ research partners and 1900 freelancers. It’s a big tent — 31% were over 50, and 64% were full-time freelance by choice. Most have a solid workload, but ⅓ are struggling (consider timing and context with Covid). Tech workers are the happiest. Freelancing is large and growing, but the platforms must continue to add value — great to see the expansion into coaching and education.
★ Facebook outage: offline for over six hours on Monday and on Friday. I enjoyed the break, but it highlights the issue of small businesses putting all their eggs in one basket and selling their services via social media rather than websites and customer service software. Excellent piece on how Facebook is acting like a hostile foreign power, and it’s time we treated it that way. Wow to the new cover of Time👀
- Facebookland: The Largest Autocracy on Earth.
★ The future of work should mean working less. Now we have space to reimagine how a job fits into a good life.A call for creating policies to keep work in its place: Universal Basic Income, rights to housing and healthcare, a living wage, and shorter hours at full pay. Human wellbeing is more important than productivity.
- The Future of Work Should Mean Working Less.
★ Headlines Network: free workshops starting in November to support media workers’ mental health in partnership with Google News Initiative. Great to hear they’re working with MIND to tackle mental health stigma in the media. Free, weekly 90-minute sessions: tips and tools for wellbeing and space for a chat — looking forward to it.
★ “There is no such thing as info overload. The overload is from ‘noise,’ and your ability to segment and ignore that noise will be a crucial survival skill for the future of your career and personal sanity” — Rohit Bhargava. A deep dive into how we develop this skill from Nir Eyal’s perspective as a tech insider who wrote Hooked: how to build habit-forming products. Clever tips on how to improve your attention and limit distraction.
- How to Survive in a World of Information Overload
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Originally published at https://niccitalbot.substack.com on October 10, 2021.
