Off-Boarding Overview
Motivosity can help you manage the employee lifecycle from hire date to departure, or on-boarding to off-boarding.
Employees generally expect to maintain access to the funds they were given. The off-boarding feature allows you to streamline this.
Off-boarding will automatically send a goodbye message when employees are leaving the company and provide their Motivosity balance to them in the form of a gift that they can redeem after deactivation. Off-boarding gifts do not expire (see the FAQ below for details on long-term inactive balances).
You can set it up to automatically off-board all users as they are deactivated, create custom automation rules for specific groups of employees, or manually select to off-board a user when deactivating them.
New Motivosity companies start with automated off-boarding turned on by default. You can change this at any time from the Setup page.
Configure Your Automated Off-Boarding
To start setting up your automated off-boarding program, navigate to the Setup page.
Next select your On-Boarding/Off-Boarding Program from the programs list.
The Default off-boarding section reads: "Determine when and if employees are off-boarded. Off-boarded employees will continue to be able to redeem their remaining Motivosity Bucks." It has two dropdowns side by side.
The first, "When should off-boarding happen," controls whether off-boarding runs automatically and, if so, how long Motivosity should wait after a user is deactivated before running it. Your options are:
Manually – Off-boarding will not run automatically. You'll need to off-board deactivated users yourself from the Team page (see below).
1 day after deactivation, through 7 days after deactivation (every day in between is available)
10 days after deactivation, 20 days after deactivation, or 30 days after deactivation
This delay can be used as a buffer in case you want to leave time to perform actions such as employee reactivation, skipping off-boarding for that specific user, or adding extra funds to employees' spending accounts to boost the gift.
If you switch this to Manually, you'll see a confirmation that reads: "Deactivated employees will not be automatically off-boarded. Individuals will need to be off-boarded on the Teams setup page. Note: Users with a custom off-boarding rule will still be off-boarded according to that rule." That last line matters: switching your default to Manually does not pause any group-specific automation rules you've already set up (see Custom Off-Boarding Automation Rules below).
The second dropdown, "Deliver remaining funds and off-board email to," controls which of an employee's email addresses receive the off-boarding message:
All email addresses – sends to every email on file for the user (this is the default).
Primary email only
Alternate emails only – useful if employees lose access to their work email immediately upon deactivation and you don't want the off-boarding gift going to whoever now manages that inbox.
Require an Exit Survey Before Redemption
If your company has the Surveys module, the Exit Survey setting appears above Personal Email in your default off-boarding setup. Select the survey that departing employees must complete. When an exit survey is selected, an off-boarded employee must submit it before they can redeem their remaining balance.
The employee's off-boarding email includes their access link. After they sign in, the survey opens in a formatted window that cannot be dismissed. Once the response is submitted successfully, employees with a balance can continue to redemption. If there is no balance or prepaid-card access remaining, the employee is signed out after completing the survey.
Submitted exit-survey responses are associated with the employee's original company and are available with the survey's other responses in Insights.
Don't have Surveys? The Exit Survey selector is disabled and a banner provides a link to learn about the Surveys module. Selecting the call to action notifies your Motivosity contact and opens the Surveys details in Platform Licenses.
Because delivery depends on employees having a personal or alternate email on file, this same On-Boarding/Off-Boarding program page also shows how many of your users currently have one. You can collect these through your org sync/HRIS connector, a CSV upload, or by sending an in-product reminder that prompts users without one to add a personal email address.
Below that is the Off-Board Email Message section, for personalizing the default off-boarding email. This has room for a configurable image (company logo or sender's photo, 1:1 aspect ratio), a header, and a message, each optional, plus a "Preview Email" link so you can see exactly what your employees will receive.
Custom Off-Boarding Automation Rules
Not every company wants to off-board every employee the same way. For example, you may want to treat part-time employees, union employees, or volunteers differently than full-time staff. Off-boarding automation rules let you set up group-specific overrides on top of your default setting above.
To create a rule:
Select the User Group the rule should apply to.
Choose the delay/timing for that group (this can be different from your default setting).
Choose whether the group uses the company Exit Survey setting, requires a different survey, or does not require an exit survey.
Optionally customize the message, attach a ThanksMatters Card mention, and select an image, just like the default message.
Save the rule.
Once saved, you can open a rule at any time to see exactly which users are currently included. Rules can also be paused and resumed without deleting them, so you can temporarily turn off a rule for a group without losing its configuration.
Rule priority: If a deactivated user belongs to a group with its own off-boarding rule, that rule's settings take priority over your default settings for that user, including timing and any Exit Survey override, even if your default timing is set to Manually.
Manual Off-Boarding
You may want to manage a deactivation outside of your standard automation. This could be done to skip the automated off-boarding and prevent the distribution of funds, or maybe you'd like to off-board an employee immediately and have their gift sent right away instead of waiting for the configured delay.
NOTE: You can manually off-board a user whether or not you have automated off-boarding enabled.
You can take actions like this from the Team page in Setup.
Start by finding the employee you would like to off-board and deactivate them using the three-dot action menu on the far right.
You'll see a "Deactivate user?" confirmation: "Deactivating a user will not delete their data, but will hide them from Motivosity and remove all access. Additionally, you can off-board employees and attach earned Motivosity Bucks for use on a special Motivosity portal." Underneath, a "Remaining funds and email delivery method" section lets you choose the delivery method for this specific deactivation (Existing email addresses: All/Primary only/Alternate only) and optionally add an additional email address that will be sent the gift details and have access to it. If you don't add an extra email, the gift will still be sent to whichever addresses are already on file for the user.
From here you have two options: "Deactivate and Off-board" to deactivate the user and run off-boarding (immediately, or per your default/rule timing), or "Deactivate and skip Off-boarding" to deactivate them without sending a gift.
You can also customize the header, message, and image for this specific off-boarding event (addressed to that individual employee) without changing your default template — handy if you're off-boarding someone under different circumstances than usual and want to adjust the tone.
Finance admins are notified any time an additional email is added to an account in this way and a funded balance is being sent as part of the gift. (If there's no balance to gift, adding an email doesn't trigger this notice.) Typically we would expect personal/alternate emails to be added via user sync ahead of time, so this notice is in place to help prevent abuse of the off-boarding process.
NOTE: If you have not configured off-boarding before manually off-boarding a user, they will receive the default email message.
Prepaid Card Behavior
If a departing employee has no spending balance to gift, but does have an active Motivosity prepaid (ThanksMatters) card, Motivosity will send them a prepaid-card access email instead of creating a gift. This lets them know how to continue accessing their existing card rather than implying there's a gift waiting for them.
If the Redemption Fund Has Insufficient Funds
If your company's Redemption Fund doesn't have enough available balance to cover an off-boarding gift at the time it's scheduled to run, the user's deactivation will still complete successfully, but the off-boarding attempt itself will be marked as failed. Motivosity will automatically retry delivering the gift once sufficient funds are available, so no manual action is required on your part, though we'd still recommend keeping an eye on your Redemption Fund balance.
Managing Off-Boarded Users from the Team Page
For any user who has already been off-boarded with a gift, the three dot action menu on the Team page gives you two additional options:
Resend Off-boarding Email – Re-sends the original off-boarding message, and lets you edit the header, message, and image before it goes out again. From here you can also add a new email address for the user if one wasn't on file (or was wrong) at the time they were deactivated.
Reverse Off-boarding – Reverses the off-boarding action, crediting the points/balance back and leaving a corresponding reversing entry in reports like the Redemption-Based Tax Summary and Orders. The user is left in a deactivated state; reactivating them is a separate action.
Please Note: Reverse Off-boarding should only be used when an employee was off-boarded by accident. Because off-boarded funds are the employee's earned rewards (and may have already been taxed as such), recalling them from a departed employee has real payroll and tax implications. Consult your payroll team and tax advisor before reversing an off-boarding for any reason other than correcting an accidental action.
Communication Examples
Below are examples of the emails showing the message with and without a gift.
Off-boarding message with gift:
Off-boarding message without gift:
If the user has no spending balance but has an active prepaid card, they'll instead receive a prepaid-card access email (see Prepaid Card Behavior above). A screenshot of that message will be added here soon.
Additional Off-Boarding FAQ
Why would you use off-boarding?
Most employees expect to have access to their funds and are surprised or even disgruntled if they do not. Additionally, if they have been taxed on these funds, they should not be forfeitable. Off-boarding provides an easy solution to improve the employee experience and compliance.
Which balances are included in the off-boarding gift?
Only the personal spending balance is gifted. If a user has access to other spending accounts from other Motivosity programs, these will not be included in the off-boarding gift.
Do you need to enable automated off-boarding to be able to use the off-boarding features?
No. You can elect to manually off-board a user when you are deactivating the user account from the Team page.
Is an email message sent if there isn't a balance to gift at the time of deactivation?
Yes. If there's no spending balance, the email is still sent but the gift portion of the message is hidden. If an exit survey is required, the email includes a link to complete it and the employee is signed out after submitting the survey. If the user has a prepaid card, they receive a prepaid-card access email instead (see Prepaid Card Behavior above).
Does off-boarding work with points or purchase power parity?
Yes. If you're using any variant of points or purchase power parity, we've got you covered. Final balances will be shown in local currency for the recipient. Technically, what's delivered is a balance of Motivosity Bucks (points), not literal currency — that's part of what allows the gift and redemption process to work the way it does.
What is the deactivated user's experience?
The user will receive the gift in an email after the delay. They will be able to redeem the gift in a separate portal store that is managed by Motivosity, where they'll have access to the full catalog. This portal does not support same-as-cash redemption options like Venmo, PayPal, or prepaid card top-ups.
Do off-boarding gifts expire?
No. Off-boarding gifts do not expire and remain available to the former employee indefinitely. That said, after 12 months of inactivity on a gift balance, Motivosity will begin deducting a maintenance fee of 1 Motivosity Buck per month from that balance, similar to standard practice for unused gift cards. This is intended to be as minimal and non-aggressive as possible while ensuring very old, unused balances don't sit open forever.
Can you use this for off-boarding users when terminating your account with Motivosity?
Yes. This would be a great way to give employees access to spend their funds if your company ever decides it is no longer going to offer Motivosity. This would require a bit of additional planning to fund, communicate, and then to deactivate all employees before the end of your contract. Then employees would be off-boarded and keep access to spend their balance independently of your company's Motivosity instance.
When I deactivate a user do I have to off-board the user with their rewards?
No. If you have automated off-boarding enabled, you can choose to go in during the off-boarding delay period and manually deactivate a user and select to skip the off-board. Similarly, if you are manually deactivating a user from the Team page, you have an option to deactivate without off-boarding.
What if I off-board someone by accident?
An admin can use the Reverse Off-boarding action from the Team page to undo it (see Managing Off-Boarded Users from the Team Page above). This should only be used for accidental off-boarding — since off-boarded funds are considered the employee's earned rewards, recalling funds from someone intentionally off-boarded has payroll and tax implications you should review with your payroll team and tax advisor first.