Admin
And this is honestly a very fair question because it’s just not something that usually gets put into that much consideration either. So, offboarding is supposed to be pretty straightforward. Like, the laptop returned, accounts disabled, access cleaned up, polite goodbye message in the team channel, done. But in real life, there’s always leftover mess, a project that was mid-flight, a client thread that apparently lived in DMs, who knows, maybe even a spreadsheet that got emailed once and then ended up sitting in somebody’s downloads folder forever (which of course happens all too often).
While a lot of businesses tend to focus on onboarding, offboarding absolutely needs to be focused on too here. And yeah, sure, by all means here, none of that feels urgent on a normal week. But the minute someone needs answers fast, that casual mess stops being “no big deal” and starts being a real business problem. As in, a compliance risk, a security risk, risk for fines, you name it. Because “former employee” doesn’t mean “former impact.”
Sure, the work is still there, it’s just scattered across tools, threads, and attachments that don’t exactly label themselves nicely. But that’s still a problem here.
Offboarding Has a Weird Way of Creating Blind Spots
And this is mainly due to the fact that most companies aren’t worried that a departed employee is plotting something, hopefully that won’t happen, of course. But the bigger issue here is that important context can disappear from view, even when every policy was followed. Just think about it, usually, decisions get made in side conversations, approvals get implied in a reaction or a quick reply, and crucial details end up living inside files that were shared once and buried.
So when a question comes up later, like who approved this, what the client actually asked for, or when the team first learned about the issue, the business obviously can’t rely on memory here. Instead, it needs the timeline, and that timeline is usually spread across email, Slack or Teams, Google Drive or SharePoint, project tools, and a stack of attachments that got renamed five times. You probably get the idea at this point.
Scavenger Hunts Waste Time and Money
Which is obviously a given at this point, but go ahead and think of this scenario for a second, though; an employee leaves, then a couple of months later, something pops up on a client account. Not even a huge scandal, just one of those situations where leadership needs a clear explanation, quickly.
But that obviously leads to a scavenger hunt, asking different departments to search their inboxes, looking at chat threads on Team or Slack, looking through systems, you get the idea here. But this is where costs show up, productivity takes a small nose dive, and it all basically adds up here.
It’s Really About Staying Ahead
Well, the point here is that if you’re ahead, that means fewer chances of scrambling later on. Just think about it; nobody knows what’s coming down the line. It could be compliance questions, a security review, an internal investigation, a customer dispute, or a lawsuit. You just don’t know, but the point isn’t to assume the worst; it’s to make sure the company can respond without flailing around.
So, you’re better off having a plan right around when onboarding happens (like when a 2-week notice is given, maybe looking into eDiscovery Solutions to help look into preserving, reviewing, and explaining business communications when needed (especially when said person is long gone).
What Should an Offboarding Setup Look Like?
Which is also a good question here. It’s better documentation around approvals, especially for anything tied to clients, money, access, or pricing. And a consistent method for locating conversations and attachments across the tools the business actually uses, not just email. Really, it’s about tying up loose ends here because people move fast.
