Offboarding is everything between a resignation (or termination decision) and a clean exit. Done well it's boring; done badly it's a security incident, a payroll dispute, or a project that loses its only expert overnight.
A complete offboarding checklist covers five tracks:
- Access — revoke accounts, keys, VPN and repository access on the last day, from a list maintained before it's needed. Orphaned accounts are the classic small-company security hole.
- Assets — laptops, monitors, licenses and badges returned and checked off against an asset registry.
- Knowledge — a handover document, ownership transferred for every project and system the person was the answer for.
- Money — final salary, unused PTO payout, expense settlements; the numbers payroll and the employee should agree on before the last day.
- The conversation — an exit interview, because departing people give the most honest feedback you'll ever collect.
For client-facing roles in a services company, add one more: client communication — who takes over, said to the client before they notice.
See the onboarding mirror: The employee onboarding checklist for IT companies.
In Helia, offboarding runs as a checklist from a template — tasks with owners and due dates — alongside exit interviews, so the process is a workflow rather than tribal memory.