The Office Farewell
- the business of saying goodbye
A nice farewell can improve morale in the workplace.
The event itself provides a break, and it can remind people of the good things about the organisation.
It can be an enjoyable experience for everyone, and should lift the mood and boost workplace productivity for the rest of the day.
In fact, providing some kind of leaving presentation, especially during work, will help create a positive workplace culture.
Management must make an effort in providing a goodbye presentation.
This is the platform to represent the company and management well, for the rest of the workers left behind.
This includes being gracious to the person leaving if they have left for negative reasons. Use this opportunity to express how far the company has come; during the time they worked there.
On the other hand, if an organisation doesn't provide a goodbye presentation, it sends the message that it doesn't care about its workers nor appreciate the time they spend there.
This is likely to increase the probability of people leaving.
Even an excruciatingly boring send-off is better than none.
In fact, from my personal experience, an embarrassingly daggy and cringe-worthy, albeit nice goodbye speech (my boss was a very bad speaker -
but this is curable
) may actually prevent people leaving, if they know they can’t avoid it.
“Bek, that speech was an incentive NOT to leave”
Jon, ex-colleague, still at the company.
The presentation is an opportunity for everyone to be on their best behaviour and show a nice face. Embarrassing people or talking about sensitive issues will lower workplace morale and leave a bad taste in the mouth. Everyone wants to be remembered well.
And if you are leaving the company, always leave on a good note, because your last days are usually what people remember about you afterwards.
Why have a Social Farewell?
For similar reasons to the office adieu, a social farewell strengthens social bonds.
Some people view them as an opportunity to have a reunion, to get together all the disparate people that have drifted away and have everyone catch up.
In this sense, when everyone (good or bad) is invited, the farewell can provide some closure on a chapter of one's life.
Everyone puts on their party face, has a good time, then moves on.
It is also an opportunity to say thank you to your community - and saying thank-you for enriching our lives is not something we do often enough.
The other compelling reason is...to party!
Just like birthdays and weddings, when else are you going to have your own love-in? It's not like we get to go to our own funerals to find out how much people miss us!
So find out now! And you'd probably be surprised at how much you will miss them...
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