Bramble Offboarding

Offboarding Overview

Facilitation of the offboarding process is shared by the Bramble leadership team.

The process to be followed will be guided by the nature of the offboarding at hand i.e. either Voluntary or Involuntary - both of which have been described in greater detail below. Each of the stakeholders listed play a critical role in ensuring that offboarding takes place in a manner that is efficient and best serves the unique needs and sensitivities surrounding the respective team members situation.

Starting the Process

Offboarding officially commences once an Offboarding Issue has been created by the People Experience Team. This action is triggered by a request by the leader responsible for overseeing the division in which the departing team member is based.

The form includes the following fields all of which will guide the leader in terms of when the process should commence and whether any factors unique to the offboarding in question should be kept in mind e.g. Garden Leave or Day to Turn Off Access.

Form Element	Guidelines
Team Member Name	As Detailed on Gusto
Job Title	As Detailed on Gusto
Termination Date	As Determined by manager / Manager and Team Member
Garden Leave	Where Applicable (Non-US)
Last Working Day	Where Applicable (US)
Type of Offboarding	Voluntary or Involuntary
Regrettable vs Non-Regrettable	Further Detail Below
Offboarding Reason	Further Detail Below
Eligible for Rehire	Yes / No
Team Member Location	As per Gusto
Exit Interview Owner	Team / Department Manager

When completing the form in instances of Voluntary Offboarding i.e. as a result of Team Member Resignation, the People Business Partner along with the Manager of the departing Team Member will need to give consideration to whether the offboarding could be considered Regrettable or Non-Regrettable - the explainations below should be used to guide the outcome:

Regrettable Offboarding

Departure has a significant negative impact on the Company / Customer(s) / Project(s) / Team.
Team Member was a good and consistent performer both in terms of results and behaviours i.e. upholding the Bramble Values.

Non-Regrettable Offboarding

Departure has a minimal impact on the Company / Customer(s) / Project(s) / Team.
Team Member has not been meeting expectations due to Conduct / Culture (Values) Misalignment / Performance Concerns.

The table below details the circumstances under which a Team Member will or will not be eligible for future rehire based on the primary reason for offboarding:

Offboarding Reason	Re-Hire Eligibility
Relocation	Yes
Career Development	Yes
Elimination of Position	Yes
Compensation	Yes
Attendance	with Review
Values Misalignment	with Review
Job Satisfaction	with Review
Knowledge, Skills, and Ability	with Review
Mutual Decision	with Review
Other	with Review
Performance	with Review
Not a fit for the role	with Review
Conduct	No
Job Abandonment	No

Opening of the offboarding issue which will in turn begin the process of systems de-provisioning will be aligned to the information presented by the leader within the Offboarding Workflow i.e. Termination Date / Last Working Day.

The leadeership team endeavours to initiate the process within twelve hours of notification - sooner where possible however in instances of involuntary termination will work with IT Ops to ensure preliminary de-provisioning happens as required.

Compliance

The People Experience Associates complete a weekly audit of all offboarding issues opened within that specific week and check that all tasks have been completed by all Departments. In the event that tasks are still outstanding, the People Experience Associate will ping the relevant Team Members / Departments within the offboarding issue to call for tasks to be completed.

Once all tasks have been completed, the People Experience Associate will close the offboarding issue and mark as completed in the offboarding tracker.

All offboarding tasks by all Departments need to be completed within 5 days of the offboarding due date. For systems that are more critical and time sensitive, these will be completed within the first 24 hours (example Keybase, GSuite, Slack) by the relevant Departments. Information about application & system deprovisioners can be found on the Tech Stack Applications handbook page.

Voluntary Offboarding

A voluntary offboarding occurs when a team member informs his or her manager of a resignation. The choice to leave Bramble was their decision.

If you are a current team member and you are thinking about resigning from Bramble, we encourage you to speak with your manager, or another trusted team member to discuss your reasons for wanting to leave. At Bramble we want to ensure that all issues team members are facing are discussed and resolved before a resignation decision has been made. This will allow Bramble the ability to address concerns and in return foster a great work environment.

If resignation is the only solution after you have discussed your concerns, please communicate your intention to resign to your manager. We would advise you to review your employment contract for the statutory notice period and determine your last working day. Then with your manager you can discuss the time needed to work on a handover/transition. If there’s no notice period included in your employment contract we would advise that you provide Bramble 2 weeks of notice. Depending on the situation and local laws, Bramble may choose to provide you payment in lieu of notice. Hereafter please review the below process which will be followed for a voluntary resignation.

Voluntary Process

Team Member: Team members are requested to provide an agreed upon notice of their intention to separate from the company to allow a reasonable amount of time to transfer ongoing workloads.
Team Member: The team member should provide a written resignation letter or email notification to their manager.
Manager: Upon receipt of the resignation, the manager will notify senior leadership by sending a copy of the resignation email/letter.
- A discussion with the manager and manager should also happen if needed to determine what led up to the resignation.
- The manager will acknowledge the receipt of the resignation with the team member confirming the last working day.
- If the team member is located in a country with statutory holiday allowance, the holiday taken should be confirmed with the manager and team member via email and then filed in Gusto.
- Once that has been done an Acknowledgement Letter can be prepared, which will depend on the location and employment status of the team member.
Manager: The manager will also inform the team member that they will receive an invitation in the next 48 hours from CultureAmp to complete an exit survey.
Manager: manager will forward the resignation email to the People Experience team at people-exp@brmbl.io, the People Operations Specialist team email inbox peopleops@brmbl.io, as well as to the payroll lead. The manager will indicate the last day, reason for resignation, and rehire eligibility in the email.
Specialist: The People Specialist will save a pdf of the resignation email to the team member’s Gusto profile in their Contracts & Changes folder.
Manager:The manager will complete the Offboarding Form, which includes all information needed to process the termination for the team member. Once submitted, a summary of the response will be posted to the #offboardings Slack channel so all stakeholders can acknowledge the offboarding.
Experience: The People Experience Team will determine who will create the offboarding issue according to the offboarding guidelines, and confirm both in the #offboardings Slack channel and in the People Exp/Ops Tracker.
Specialist: The People Specialist will reach out to the team member directly to schedule an Exit Interview.
- The assigned People Specialist will first send out the Offboarding Informational Email according to the appropriate offboarding template.
Experience: The People Experience team member will reach out to the departing team member directly to confirm the time at which they can proceed with the creation of the offboarding issue on the team member’s last day. Important to note that offboardings which are scheduled to take place on a Friday will see issues being created at the latest 12:00pm PT at which point de-provisioning will commence, unless there are unavoidable circumstances for a later offboarding.

Team Member Actions

As a departing team member, it is good to know that there are some tasks that you will need to take care before your offboarding takes place and things you do not need to worry about. Take a look at the Offboarding FAQ’s which will help provide additional information regarding your offboarding.

Involuntary Offboarding

Involuntary offboarding of any team member is never easy. We’ve created some guidelines and information to make this process as humane as we can. Beyond the points outlined below, make sure to refer to our guidelines on underperformance, as well as the offboarding issue.

If the need for Involuntary offboarding arises, the process is as indicated below:

Last Working Day or Garden Leave

Team members on Last Working Date or Garden leave will have no access to Bramble systems and may not be required to do any work on Bramble’s behalf, but will still be active on payroll through the termination date. The People Experience team will generate the offboarding issue at the end of the team member’s last working day, as per notification from the People Business Partner. Once the Last Working Day or Garden leave expires the team member will be officially offboarded from Bramble. Prior to the offboarding issue and the overall process for the term listed below. The manager will complete the following:

Last Working Day - Only for US Team members

Manager: manager will have a legal/CPO review of the planned offboarding.
Manager: manager will inform payroll, compensation and benefits, security and the stock administration of the date the team member will have access suspended and the official offboarding date prior to the start of the official offboarding issue. The manager can either inform the group via the confidential #offboardings channel 1-2 days prior to the scheduled exit or via a zoom call.
Manager: manager will work with the People Experience Team to ensure the offboarding issue has the correct dates and all Bramble offboarding team members in payroll, compensation and benefits, security and stock administration have been communicated to and understand the correct offboarding date.

Note: The offboarding process will remain the same as listed below in the Involuntary Process section below. The People Specialist will notify the team via the confidential #offboardings Slack channel to start turning off the team member’s access.

Involuntary Process

The manager and the team member should have walked through the guidelines on underperformance before reaching this point.

Manager: Reach out to the appropriate People Business Partner (manager) for assistance.
- manager will ask about what the performance issues have been, how they have been attempted to be addressed, and review all manager/team member documentation.
- Once the review has been completed and the decision has been made to offboard the team member, the manager will partner with the People Specialists to coordinate the offboarding of the team member.
Manager: The manager will notify the People Operations Specialist team of the offboarding by posting in the #Offboardings confidential Slack channel. The manager will indicate the team member’s name, last day, reason for resignation, and rehire eligibility. The first Specialist to respond to the post will be the Specialist that partners with the manager for the offboarding process.
Note: If the team member has a contract with a co-employer, the payroll lead will forward the email to the contact at the co-employer.
Manager: The manager will create a private Slack channel that will include the manager, Manager, and Leader of the organization to review the offboarding and agreed upon offboarding date.
Specialist: If applicable, the People Specialist will prepare the severance agreement in preparation for the call between the manager, Manager, and team member. Additional guidelines for the preparation of this agreement can be found below in the Separation and Release of Claims Agreements section. To determine whether or not a severance agreement is applicable, please refer to the Severance Elgibility guidelines accessible by PBPs and Specialists. Note: For any severance that has less than 48 hours turn around the People Business Partners will handle.
Manager: Once the date and time is confirmed, the manager will schedule time with the team member and send the manager a private and separate calendar invite with the Zoom details for the meeting with the team member to share the news of the offboarding.
Payroll: If the team member is employed by a PEO/entity with statutory leave requirements, review if any time off needs to be paid on the last paycheck by looking in Gusto in the Time Off section.
People Experience Associate: The PEA will confirm and coordinate the date and time of the offboarding and who will be available to assist with the offboarding. At this stage, the name of the departing team member is not yet shared. To share this information, the People Business Partner will complete the Offboarding Form. Once submitted a summary of the response will be posted to the #offboarding Slack channel.
Manager: Discuss best mode of communicating the bad news to the team member. This discussion can happen via a private chat-channel, but it is best to be done via video.
Manager: Decide who will handle which part of the conversation, and if desired, practice it.
- If needed the manager will provide the manager with a script for the offboarding meeting.
Manager: If the team member who is being terminated is a people manager, a communication plan for the team regarding the departure should be in place before the offboarding proceeds. The communication plan should include: identification of an interim leader, (ideally) a scheduled meeting with the interim leader for the direct reports, a scheduled team call to announce the current manager’s departure and the interim leadership, and finally an announcement in the #team-member-updates Slack channel to share with the wider team.
- Important:
  - Informing the team and answering questions should be the top priority.
  - No announcement should be made in the #team-member-updates Slack channel until the team call has been completed.
  - In most cases, a team call can occur the same day of the offboarding. If necessary, the offboarding can be announced in the #team-member-updates Slack channel the following day.
Manager: Decide what offboarding actions need to be taken before the call (e.g. revoke admin permissions), or during the call (e.g. revoke Slack and Gmail access), and which ones can wait until later. You can reference the offboarding issue template for the full list of actions. This conversation should take place in the private Slack channel with manager, Manager and Leader.
Manager: If the team member is a risk to the production environment, the manager should privately reach out to the Infrastructure Managers to determine who will be available to assist with the offboarding. Once an infrastructure team member has been identified, they should be added to the private calendar invite sent to People Experience, Security, and Payroll to hold the time for the team member offboarding. Once the offboarding conversation starts the manager will privately Slack the infrastructure contact the name of the team member to start the offboarding process.

When on the call…

Manager: Deliver the bad news up-front, do not beat around the bush and prolong the inevitable pain for everyone involved. The Manager will make it clear that the decision is final, but will also explain what led to this decision and will point to the process that was followed to reach this decision. A sample leading sentence can be:

“Thanks for joining the call, [team member name]. Unfortunately, the reason I wanted to speak with you is because we have decided that we have to let you go and end your employment / contract with Bramble because of xyz."

Manager: As soon as the conversation begins, the manager will ping the team members in the confidential #offboardings Slack channel with the name of the team member to immediately start the offboarding process.
People Operations Specialist:The assigned People Specialist send out the Offboarding Informational Email according to the appropriate offboarding template.
Manager: Hand the call over to the manager to continue.
Manager: The manager will also make it clear that the decision is final, but also will genuinely listen to the team member’s side of the story since there may be useful lessons in what they say for the rest of the team e.g. regarding hiring and vetting practices.
Manager: Make sure to communicate the practical points from the offboarding memo outlined below.
Manager: Once the conversation is complete, the manager will stage the severance document in Gusto for review and signatures.

Offboarding Workflow

This section will define key terms in offboarding workflow form.

Offboarding Form

Questions	Definitions
Team Name
Job Title
Termination Effective Date	Termination Date for Gusto
Garden Leave Start Date	Last working day before access is turned off
Last Working Day	Last working day before access is turned off US only
Type of Offboarding	Voluntary / Involuntary
Offboarding Reason	Reasons available for review in the Offboarding Reasons & Re-Hire Eligibility section
Eligible for Rehire
Eligible for Alumni Channel
Team Member Location
Payroll -Exit Interview Owner	manager / Specialist

Hold for In-Vol Offboarding

This form is used to help

Date of Offboarding
Time of Offboarding PST
Location
Anything else we should know

Critical Points During Offboarding Call

{: #offboarding-points}

The following points need to be covered for any team member:

Final Pay: “Your final check (or invoice period) is for the pay period of X and includes X days of pay”.
Company Property: “Please return all property as explained in the handbook, also please delete Bramble’s email connection from your phone”.
Business Expenses: “Please create your final expense report to Expensify (for employees), OR, please file any outstanding expenses with your final invoice (for contractors), so these can be reimbursed to you in a timely manner”.
Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure: “We know you are a professional, please keep in mind the agreement you signed when you were hired”.
If you would like Bramble to share your personal email with the rest of the company, please send an email to People Ops or a farewell message that can be forwarded on your behalf.

The following points need to be covered for US-based employees:

COBRA: “Your benefits will cease on last day of the month you are eligible for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (“COBRA”), the carrier (Lumity) has been notified and the carrier will send out the paperwork to your home address on file”.
PPACA: “You may also be eligible under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”) for subsidized health care options via the marketplace. If you are interested it is important that you sign up with the market place well before the 15th of the month to have coverage for the following month”.
HIPAA: " Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), if you need a certificate of credible coverage please download it from your current carrier’s online portal or request it from People Ops”.
Unemployment insurance: “It is up to your state’s labor agency (in CA: EDD) to decide if you are eligible for unemployment insurance”.
Please remember to keep Bramble informed: “If you move I want to be sure your W-2 gets to you at the end of the year. You may also contact X at Bramble (provide phone number and email address) with any other questions that you may have” (consider inviting them to contact you at anytime for any reason).

Separation and Release of Claims Agreements

{: #separation-agreement}

Separation and Release of Claims Agreements do not apply for all offboardings. To review in which cases they do/do not apply, please reference the Severance Eligibility document accessible by People Specialists and PBPs. In the case that a severance agreement is applicable, the steps below should be followed:

Process for US-based Team Members

Specialist: The People Specialist assigned to the particular offboarding case at hand should select the appropriate severance template. Options include: Non-California over 40, California over 40, Non-California under 40, California under 40.
Specialist: The People Specialist should make a copy of the template and save it in the Copies of Individual Severance Agreements folder.
Specialist: The People Specialist should fill out the document and share with the manager and Legal for final review/approval.
manager: The manager will stage the document in HelloSign for signatures. Please note that depending on the template used, team members have a limited amount of time to sign the Separation and Release of Claims Agreement.

When staging the document for signatures, please note:
- Remember to send the document to the team member’s personal email address
- Select the assign signature order option in HelloSign to ensure the team member signs the document first

manager: When the signed document is received, the Specialist should upload it to the team member’s Gusto profile in the termination folder
manager: As a final step, the manager should ping the #payoll_peopleops_terms private channel to confirm that the Severance document has been signed and uploaded to Gusto

Important Notes:

Separation pay is not paid until the ex-team member signs the document and the revocation period has passed.
We treat team members equally and therefore do not take tenure into consideration when determining separation pay unless legally required. We know that other companies sometimes gives higher separation pay to longer tenure. We think that a short tenure can be harder to explain to a next employer and with a shorter tenure you might have less stock option upside, maybe you have not even reached your vesting cliff.
Make sure you understand the rules for over 40.
You must use language in your exit meeting that is in no way forceful of the ex-team member to sign the agreement. Use phrasing such as “if you choose to sign”; “you have a right to have legal council review this document before you sign”, etc.

Process for Team Members Outside of the US

To be documented

Communicating Departures Company-Wide

As explained briefly in the offboarding issue, Bramble does not provide any context around why people are leaving when they do.

However as mentioned in the procedures, for voluntary offboarding, the team member can share their reasons for leaving if they wish.

If they choose not to then the departing team member’s manager shares the following in the #team-member-updates Slack channel:

“As of today, [X] ([X’s job title] from the [X’s team] team) is no longer with Bramble. I would like to take this opportunity to thank X for their contributions and wish them all the best for the future. If you have questions about tasks or projects that need to be picked up, please let me know. If you have concerns, please bring them up with your manager.”

If someone is let go involuntarily, this generally cannot be shared since it affects the individual’s privacy and job performance is intentionally kept between an individual and their manager.

Unless it’s for extreme behaviour/gross misconduct, the team member will be advised the areas of concern about their performance, given support and guidance on how to improve and provided with an appropriate timeframe to reach and sustain the expectations.

If you are not close to an employee’s offboarding, it may seem unnecessarily swift. Please remember that these decisions are never made without following the above process to come to a positive resolution first - we need to protect the interests of the individual as well as the company, and offboarding are a last resort.

According to our values negative feedback is 1-1 between you and your manager and we are limited in what we can share about private employee issues. Please discuss any concerns you have about another employee’s offboarding with your manager or your People Business Partner.

Given the expectations and responsibility that come with a VP and above position, when there is an involuntary offboarding for one of these positions, additional context for the personnel change can be provided to the organization.

Silence is unpleasant. It’s unpleasant because we are human, which means that we are generally curious and genuinely interested in the well-being of our team members.

Is it more unpleasant in a remote setting? Probably not.

When people are all in the same office building, they can “kinda sorta” know what may be coming because of the grapevine, the water cooler, and so on. When the news hits it might be less of a shock - only because of unprofessional behavior in the first place.

But at larger companies with multiple office buildings, departures will tend to come as more of a surprise and with less context (at least to the people in other buildings).

We strive to maintain personal information regarding all team members private, this includes information regarding a team members voluntary or involuntary departure from Bramble. However, a manager with the consent and approval of the departing team member can share more details with the Bramble team regarding the decision to leave Bramble.

For a voluntary departure a team member may have chosen to leave for many different reasons, career development, promotion, a new role or career path, dislike remote work, etc. For example, a team member may tell their manager that they really miss being in an office environment and remote work is not suitable for their personality. Based on that decision they have taken another opportunity that allows them to go to an office.

If the departing team member gives their manager permission to share that information then the manager will share while making the departure announcement on the team call. We want all Bramble team-members to be engaged, happy and fulfilled in their work and if remote work, the requirements of the job or the role it self are not fulfilling we wish our team members the best of luck in their next endeavor.

Regarding involuntary offboarding, certain information can also be shared with the Bramble team regarding the departure. Some team members do not thrive or enjoy the work that they were hired to do. For example after starting at Bramble a team member quickly learns they have no desire or interest to learn Git or work with Git. This doesn’t make them a bad person, it just means they don’t have the interest for the role and based on that the decision was made to exit the company. Again, we want all team members to enjoy and thrive in their work and that may or may not be at Bramble.

The departing team member may author a goodbye message for either voluntary or involuntary offboarding:

Write your message, for example, “It was a pleasure working with you all. I’ve decided to pursue an opportunity in a different industry that is more aligned with my interests. I’ll be rooting for Bramble from the sidelines. Stay in touch: Cheers!”
Send it to your manager and People Partner for approval.
The manager can with the permission of the team member post the agreed upon message verbatim as long as the message is deemed appropriate in the company call agenda and slack goodbye announcements.
If appropriate, managers are encouraged to thank departing team members for their contributions and wish them the best of luck on their future endeavors.

In some instances there will be no further clarification on why a team member has departed, if there are concerns you can address those with your manager. Different levels of transparency will exist based on maintaining respectful treatment for all departures. Having team members leave may be a learning opportunity for some, but should not be a point of gossip for anyone. Managers will need to balance the opportunity for learning with the expectation of privacy and consult their People Business Partner should they have questions.

Transparency is one of our values. In the case of offboarding transparency can be painfully specific, calling out an employee’s flaws, while inviting more questions and gossip. We opt to share the feedback only with peers and reports of the person since we balance transparency with our value of collaboration and negative is 1-1.

Returning Property to Bramble

As part of offboarding, any Bramble property valued above 1,000 USD needs to be returned to Bramble.

For laptops, please refer to the Laptop Buy Back Policy which states that team-members have the option to buy back their existing laptops either when it gets refreshed for a new one, or when the team member is offboarding. If the team member has completed 1 calendar year or more at Bramble at the time of laptop refresh or offboarding, they can opt to keep their laptop at no cost. If the team member hasn’t completed 1 calendar year at Bramble at that time, they have the option to purchase their laptop for current market value.

To return your laptop to Bramble, please contact itops@GitLab.com immediately upon offboarding.

Evaluation

How could this outcome have been avoided?
Were there early signs that were missed?
In retrospect, what questions should have been asked to bring awareness and ownership to performance issues? For example, “How would you compare yourself relative to your peers?” People are surprisingly honest here.

Retrospective for Managers

For involuntary offboardings it is optional to do a retrospective on the hiring, onboarding and coaching/communication of the departing team member. As a manager, you can use this template for a retrospective. Please share the filled out template with your manager as well as the People Business Partner for your group.

Within the Engineering division this is a required process because it causes hiring managers to reflect on what led to the ultimate decision of parting ways with the team member, and how that might be prevented during future hiring processes.