sop · People, Operations & Finance
Employee Offboarding
Employee Offboarding
Purpose
Provide a controlled process for ending an employee/intern engagement while protecting company/client access, preserving required knowledge and records, recovering assets, and closing the relationship professionally.
Use the Employee Offboarding Checklist to execute and verify each departure. This SOP owns the process and approval rules.
This SOP covers operational offboarding. Statutory rights, notice, severance, and other legal/contractual terms must follow the applicable contract, company policy, and law.
When to Use
Use for resignation, termination, end of internship, end of fixed-term employment where applicable, or another departure requiring company access/records/assets to be closed.
Owner
People Operations coordinates offboarding. The Team/Department Lead owns work handover. Responsible system/account owners support access removal.
Termination Approval
For involuntary termination, the standard approval flow is:
Team/Department Lead recommendation → People Operations/HR review → CEO final approval
The Team/Department Lead documents the basis for the recommendation. People Operations/HR reviews the case, records, applicable process, and employment terms. The CEO provides final authorization before termination is executed, except where immediate protective action is required for a serious security/safety risk and management must first restrict access or protect company/client assets.
Procedure
1. Confirm the departure
People Operations confirms the departure basis, final/effective working date, applicable notice/contract instructions, responsible manager/lead, confidentiality requirements, and urgency of access removal.
2. Create the offboarding plan
Identify actions and owners for work/client handover, system/account access, credentials, company assets, employment/HR records, final administrative/financial processing, and required communication.
3. Complete work and knowledge handover
Identify open work, commitments, client/vendor context, blockers/risks, files/documentation, and reusable process knowledge not yet captured in the SOP Library. Missing reusable knowledge should be proposed to the canonical library rather than stored as an exit-only duplicate.
4. Transfer ownership
Reassign applicable tasks/projects, documents/files, client/project ownership, recurring responsibilities, calendars/meetings, and shared/system ownership. Verify transfer.
5. Remove/revoke access
At the appropriate effective time, remove applicable company/client access including identity/email, ClickUp, Google Workspace/Drive, communication tools, password-manager vaults, GitHub, hosting/cloud/DNS, client systems, and privileged sessions/tokens.
Where individual revocation is insufficient because a shared credential was exposed, change or invalidate that credential. Do not perform unnecessary blanket password rotation where individual access can be safely revoked.
6. Recover company assets and information
Recover applicable company property and confirm required company/client files/work products are stored in approved company-controlled locations.
7. Complete exit administration
People Operations completes required records and coordinates final administrative/financial actions according to the governing contract, policy, and applicable law. Where appropriate, collect exit feedback and issue approved completion/employment documents.
8. Communicate the transition
Notify relevant stakeholders only as necessary for continuity and security. Keep communication factual and avoid confidential employment details.
9. Verify closeout
Complete and retain the applicable Employee Offboarding Checklist. Offboarding is complete when ownership is transferred, required access is removed, assets are accounted for, administration is complete or assigned, stakeholders know the new contact/owner, and unresolved security/client/financial/legal items have an owner.
Immediate / High-Risk Departure
For a high-risk or immediate departure, prioritize coordinated access restriction/revocation, evidence preservation, company/client asset protection, and controlled communication. Protective security action may occur immediately when necessary, while the formal employment decision follows required approval and applicable legal/contractual process.
Exceptions / Escalation
Escalate when a contractual/legal requirement is uncertain, company/client data appears missing, privileged access remains, company assets are not returned, misconduct/security compromise/fraud/data loss is suspected, or client continuity is at risk.