Employee Offboarding Template

Employee offboarding template

This employee offboarding template helps HR teams, managers, and IT departments coordinate a clear, secure, and consistent departure process. It brings together exit tasks, knowledge transfer, handover responsibilities, access removal, equipment returns, documentation, and exit conversations in one visual workspace.

Use this template to assign owners, track deadlines, protect company information, preserve essential knowledge, and ensure all administrative steps are completed. It supports voluntary resignations, retirements, contract endings, and other employee departures while creating a professional experience for both the departing employee and the organization.

Offboarding best practices

Use these controls to keep offboarding timely, secure and consistently recorded.

Plan succession and the next hire

Decide how the work will be covered and whether, when and how to recruit a replacement.

Secure access and property

Revoke access at the agreed time and recover all company equipment, keys and other property.

Run an exit interview

Hold a structured exit interview to understand the employee's experience and reasons for leaving.

Communicate clearly

Confirm responsibilities, dates and next steps clearly with the employee and everyone involved.

Treat people respectfully

Handle the departure with dignity, fairness and discretion from notice through the final day.

Employee offboarding

Use this map to coordinate a clear, secure and respectful employee departure from notice through post-exit follow-up.

After they leave

Decide how the work will be covered and identify any wider workforce actions after the exit.

Target start date

Set a realistic desired start date based on business need and likely recruitment lead time.

Recruitment brief owner

Assign the person responsible for preparing and approving the recruitment brief.

Compare against last three exits

Check recent exits from the team for repeated reasons, managers or conditions.

Skills the team now lacks

Identify capabilities or experience that will be missing after the departure.

Replace or redistribute

Decide whether to recruit, redistribute the work or leave the position open.

Exit conversation

Capture candid feedback in a structured conversation led by someone other than the employee's manager.

What they would change

Record practical suggestions about the role, team, management or organisation.

What would have kept them

Ask which realistic changes might have influenced their decision to stay.

Why they are leaving

Capture the employee's own explanation, using their words as accurately as possible.

Not their manager

Choose a neutral interviewer who is not the employee's direct manager.

Interview date

Schedule the exit interview early enough for a useful and unhurried conversation.

Equipment return

Track every company asset and access item that must be returned or disabled.

Company property

List any other company-owned items, documents or materials to recover.

Building access

Record passes, keys or access cards to collect or deactivate.

Laptop and devices

List laptops, phones, storage devices and peripherals that must be returned.

Access & systems

Plan the secure transfer or removal of accounts, credentials, email and files.

Files transferred

Confirm that relevant files have been moved to an accessible company-owned location.

Email forwarding

Decide whether email should be forwarded, delegated, archived or closed, and for how long.

Shared credentials to rotate

Identify shared passwords, keys or secrets that must be changed securely.

Accounts to revoke

List user accounts and permissions to remove at the agreed time.

Relationships

Reassign important internal and external relationships and make clear introductions.

Introductions sent

Confirm that the departing employee or manager has made the required introductions.

Suppliers and partners

List external suppliers or partners that require a new company contact.

Internal stakeholders

Identify colleagues or teams who depend on the employee and assign a new contact.

Clients and accounts

List clients or accounts that need a new owner and note any sensitivities.

Handover

Assign each responsibility to a named receiver and confirm that the transfer is complete.

Confirmed by receiver

Confirm that the receiver understands the handover and accepts ownership.

Documented where

Link to or name the location of the supporting documentation.

Handover session

Schedule the walkthrough or shadowing session and record when it is complete.

Receiver

Assign a named person who will take ownership after the employee leaves.

Task or system

Name the task, process or system being handed over.

Knowledge capture

Identify knowledge, access and unfinished work that could be lost when the employee leaves.

Work in progress

Record open work, its current status, next action, owner and relevant deadline.

Undocumented processes

Capture processes that currently rely on memory rather than clear documentation.

Sole system admin access

Identify systems where the departing employee is the only administrator or privileged user.

Tasks nobody else does

List recurring or critical tasks for which no reliable cover currently exists.

Exit basics

Record the key employment details, dates and communication responsibilities for the departure.

Who needs to know

List each person or group to inform, who will tell them and the appropriate timing.

Reason for leaving

Record the agreed category and a factual summary of why the employment is ending.

Notice period ends

Enter the contractual end date of the employee's notice period.

Last working day

Enter the employee's confirmed final working date.