Offboarding tool aims to build loyalty by offering benefits to departing employees

As millennials jump from job to job, a good offboarding experience might leave a lasting impression — and encourage former employees to return.

That’s the idea behind MyChoice Market, benefits management company Businessolver’s latest product that helps HR managers offboard exiting employees while providing a marketplace for former employees to buy medical plans and additional coverage such as device protection, pet insurance and ID theft protection.

“The way we offboard employees is just as critical as how we onboard them — and you don’t need to look any further than the boomerang phenomenon to see why,” says Businessolver CEO Jon Shanahan. “MyChoice Market can set employers apart by maintaining consistent support for employees in managing their benefits, no matter where they are on the employment spectrum.”

The mobile-enabled app is designed to seamlessly integrate into existing HRIS, where benefit managers can transition former employees to the MyChoice Market to elect, enroll and set up payment for a range of benefit plan options, such as medical, dental, vision, pet insurance, ID theft protection, legal and device protection.

Because Businessolver is in regular communication with former employees to provide notice of their COBRA responsibilities, creating a mobile-enabled app seemed like an obvious addition to their offerings, Shanahan says.

“Receiving information through an app becomes the norm for certain users and generational users,” he says. “That’s a reality. It’s a way you do shopping, the way you do business.”

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The app has iOS and Android capabilities and is available solely through employers, he says. The product is in “beyond beta” testing, where clients are just starting to incorporate the app into their system leading up to open enrollment. Although the offering is white labeled, the offering is advertised as being powered by MyChoice Market.

Businessolver will have the app open and offered to all its clients by the first quarter of 2018, Shanahan says.

Despite the re-hiring stigma, Shanahan says that HR is 30% more efficient and effective in recruiting when they are working with former employees.

The trend of switching jobs after a year or two isn’t likely to stop, either. Nearly half (46%) of millennials, 33% of Gen X and 29% of baby boomers say they would return to a former company, according to a Workplace Trends report. The same study finds that 40% of HR professionals would rehire alumni employees.

By giving millennials — and other exiting employees — a benefits portfolio that they might not have access to and creating an alumni network, employers keep the connection and benefit from a “real economic value of getting these folks back” if they return, he adds.

“You’re ultimately going to get a high return on investment,” he says.