Employee offboarding checklist: access, assets, dues and records

The clock starts with the resignation letter. Record the notice date, the agreed leaving date and the reason code together in one exit record, and open it the same day so later tasks hang from it.

Clearance tasks scattered across four inboxes are the ones that get missed, whereas a single record lets HR see which approvals are open and which owner has not answered.

Check the contract for the notice period and any buyout clause, because a shortened notice shifts every date after it, from the last access hour to the final settlement. Payroll cut-off moves too.

The manager owns knowledge transfer. Ask for a handover note listing open tasks, customer contacts, credentials held in shared vaults and files stored on personal drives, and review it with the leaver.

Name the person taking each task over. “The team” is not a successor. Review the note at the midpoint of the notice period, because a note written on the final afternoon is rarely complete enough to use.

For roles that face customers or suppliers, introduce the successor by phone or visit before the last week, because waiting leaves no time for the questions a buyer asks.

Access should end at an agreed hour on the leaving date and not before the handover is signed off, unless the role touches sensitive records. Then remove email, the VPN, cloud folders, the CRM, accounting logins and any forwarding rules the leaver set up on shared inboxes, working down one written list.

Take back the laptop, phone, charger, access card, SIM and keys, and check each serial number against the asset register before anyone signs the return slip. Copy files first, wipe after.

Forward the mailbox to the successor for a fixed period and set an auto-reply naming who now handles the leaver’s customers and suppliers. Then close it. Old accounts left open are the usual source of later security trouble, because nobody watches a mailbox whose owner has gone and no longer reads it.

Finance needs a clean list: pending salary days, unused leave to be paid out, loans or advances, travel claims, notice shortfall and any damage to company property.

Tie each deduction to a document. A deduction with no paper behind it becomes a dispute, so show the employee the statement before the payment is made and let them question each line. An argument over one deduction should never delay the payment of every other amount that is plainly owed, so pay the undisputed amount on the due date.

Send the final settlement on the date the policy promises, since late settlements generate more complaints than almost any other part of an exit. Pay on time.

Issue the relieving and experience letters only once clearance is complete and every row on the clearance sheet carries a sign-off from its owner. Keep a signed copy, and record the date the letter was handed over or sent, so a later reference check can be answered in minutes.

File the exit interview, resignation letter, clearance form and final statement in the employee record, and set a retention date under your country’s rules.

This week, take your last three exits. Check which items had no owner. Start the checklist from those gaps. Ask HR, IT and finance to read the sheet together for twenty minutes, since they will each spot a task the others assumed was theirs.