Build a checklist for a departure in the order the steps actually need doing. Built for small businesses across Chester County PA, northern Delaware, and northern Maryland, though the checklist works anywhere.
0 steps
Only relevant when the departure is not a resignation. If it is, skip this and start at the next section.
These close the window where access still works. Everything else can wait; these cannot.
This covers the IT side only. Final pay, notice, holiday, references and anything your contracts or your state require are employment matters and are not in here. Add the systems specific to your industry before you use it: ten minutes of local knowledge is what turns this from a good start into your actual checklist.
Running joiners and leavers properly is included on a managed plan, so nobody has to remember any of this on a bad week. Happy to talk it through for fifteen minutes, whether or not it goes anywhere.
Book a 15 minute callI will send it as a document you can keep and reuse for the next one. One email, and I do not add you to a list.
It assumes you run the business rather than the network. If you can answer questions about how your office works, you can complete it.
Everyone knows the account has to be disabled. Far fewer know that disabling it does not sign out the phone in their pocket, or that when a departure is not a resignation, access should be closed before the conversation rather than after it. That sequencing is what this generates.
Email is the one thing everybody remembers. What survives a departure is the industry software licence, the shared password four people knew, the supplier portal registered in their name, and the files synced to a home computer.
A departure that happens once a year is done from memory by whoever is around, and memory is worst on exactly the days that are busiest or most awkward. A list removes the judgement from a moment that does not need any.
There is no name field, deliberately. The checklist does not need one, and asking would mean collecting personal details about somebody who never visited this site. Tick what applies, take the list, fill in the rest on paper.
Anybody can list the steps. The reason a departure goes wrong is almost never that somebody did not know the account had to be disabled, it is that things happened in the wrong order, or that two steps everyone thinks are one step were treated as one.
| Stage | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Before anything is said | Only relevant when the departure is not a resignation. If it is, skip this and start at the next section. |
| The first hour | These close the window where access still works. Everything else can wait; these cannot. |
| The same day | Ordered by what stops mattering once it is done. |
| Within the first week | Ordered by what stops mattering once it is done. |
| Within the month | Ordered by what stops mattering once it is done. |
Ending sessions is not the same as blocking sign-in. Blocking stops the next login. A phone that is already signed in holds a valid session and carries on working, sometimes for days. They are two separate actions and nearly everyone does only the first.
When it is not a resignation, access closes during the conversation.Not out of suspicion, but because somebody upset and still holding full access is a situation that helps nobody, including them. That has to be arranged beforehand, which is why it is the first stage rather than a note at the bottom.
It covers the IT side of a departure and nothing else. Final pay, holiday, notice periods, references and anything your contracts or your state require are employment matters, and I am not the person to ask about them. It also cannot know about the systems specific to your industry, so treat what it produces as a strong start that still needs ten minutes of local knowledge added to it.
Because they are different actions and almost everybody does only the first. Blocking sign-in prevents the next login. A device that is already signed in holds a valid session and keeps working, sometimes for days, so a leaver can carry on reading mail from a personal phone after their access is officially gone. In Microsoft 365 it is one extra click once you know to look for it.
Because it changes the order, not the contents. When somebody is leaving on their own terms, closing access after the conversation is fine and closing it before would be insulting. When they are not, access should be closed while the conversation is happening, and somebody needs to have been asked to do that in advance. That is a planning decision, not a technical one.
No, and there is nowhere to. The checklist does not need it, and asking would mean collecting personal details about somebody who never visited this site and did not agree to anything. Print it and write the name on at the top if that helps you.
Free, and the checklist is there before you tick anything. Email is only if you want it sent to you as a document to reuse. Nothing you select leaves your browser.
In order: ending live sessions, industry software logins that are not linked to the main account, shared passwords the person knew, online services registered to their email address, and scheduled jobs running under their login. Email is almost never the one that is missed.
Long enough that genuine mail is not lost, short enough that it is not an open account nobody watches. Most small businesses land somewhere between one and three months with an auto-reply pointing elsewhere, then convert it to a shared mailbox. The important part is putting a date on it, because without one it stays live indefinitely.
Block it rather than delete it, at least at first. Deletion can take the mailbox and any files they owned with it, and in most platforms it starts a retention clock you cannot pause. Block, hand over, then decide about deletion once you are sure nothing is still needed.
Yes, and it is part of a managed plan rather than an extra. Joiners and leavers are the single most commonly skipped task in a business without dedicated IT, precisely because they land on whoever is busiest that week.
All free, all a couple of minutes, and none of them ask for anything before showing you the answer.
Thirteen questions on the controls that decide whether a bad day stays a bad day.
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Start itTen questions on whether you have outgrown calling someone when it breaks.
Start itI will walk through what came back, tell you which items genuinely need attention and which can wait, and you are under no obligation after it.
Free, no obligation, and you talk directly with a senior engineer.