The notice period is the interval between announcing the end of an employment relationship — a resignation or a termination — and the actual last working day. Its length comes from law or contract and varies widely: two weeks is the statutory default for employee resignations in Ukraine, one to three months is common across the EU, probation usually shortens it, and B2B contractor agreements — the norm in CEE IT services — set whatever the contract says, commonly 14–30 days.
For a services company the notice period is not a countdown; it is the offboarding window, and it is almost always shorter than the to-do list:
- Knowledge handover — documentation written, ownership reassigned for every system and project the person was the answer for.
- Client transition — the successor introduced to the client before the last day, not after the client notices.
- Access and assets — the revocation list and equipment return prepared in advance, executed on the final day.
- Final numbers — unused vacation payout and expense settlements agreed while everyone is still in the same room.
The classic failure is starting this list in the final week. Planning backwards from the last day is what separates a clean exit from a scramble.
In Helia, offboarding checklists anchor every task to the last working day with day offsets: negative offsets schedule handover and client-transition tasks inside the notice period, zero lands on the final day itself, and positive offsets cover post-exit wrap-up such as payroll settlement.