Use cases by capability
When someone leaves the team
Access is cut in a minute. What that person was carrying takes three weeks to surface, and surfaces badly.
Two weeks' notice, the send-off, access cut… and three weeks later a client asks about something only that person was carrying. This is not an HR problem: it is that someone's documentary work lives spread across open requests, contacts who only ever answered them, and folders nobody else looked at.
What is left orphaned
| What | Where it shows | When it blows up |
|---|---|---|
| Open requests in their name | Nobody chases them | The day the document is needed |
| Contacts who only spoke to them | They stop replying | At the next renewal |
| Documents only in their inbox | They are in no file at all | At the first audit |
| Their training and authorisations | They counted towards your matrix | When the matrix is requested |
Important
The order matters more than the list: **hand over first, cut access after, on the same day**. Cutting on Friday and handing over «when there's time» is the mistake that turns an orderly departure into three months of archaeology, because once the account closes you can no longer ask «where was this?» of the only person who knew. Postponing the cut is not the answer either: move the handover date forward, not the closing date back.
The handover, in four moves
- 1
Reassign everything open before the last day
Each live request goes to someone staying, with a name and a face.
- 2
Introduce whoever stays to the contacts that were theirs
A two-line email saves three months of silence.
- 3
Move into the file whatever only exists in their inbox
What is not in the file does not exist when someone asks.
- 4
And close access the same day they leave
Not before, as it blocks the handover; not after, as it then never happens.
Watch out
There is a half-measure that looks practical and is the worst of both: **leaving their mailbox alive and forwarding it**. Contacts keep writing to someone who is gone, whoever gets the copy does not feel responsible for replying, and the record of who did what becomes unreadable. If something must outlive the person, let it outlive them under a function name —purchasing, quality— and not under the name of someone who left.
What makes the next departure painless
Worth knowing
What may be kept from the activity of someone who leaves, for how long, and what to do with anything personal left in their account follows its own rules. **Your adviser settles that**; here we deal with the other half: not leaving the work ownerless.
›What if they have already gone with no handover?
Do it anyway, in order: start with whatever expires soonest.
›Delete their user or deactivate it?
Deactivate. Deleting takes the record of who did what with it.
›Do contacts need telling?
Those who depended on that person, yes, and before the next request.
A real case
The situation
The person handling supplier documentation leaves and three renewals are left with nobody chasing them.
What you do
- Reassigns the open requests and introduces the replacement before the last day
What you get
The renewals carry on and suppliers reply to the right person, with no restart.
The situation
Somebody leaves the team with eleven open files in their name and thirty suppliers awaiting their reply.
What you do
- Reassigns their files before their last day
- Changes the recipient on the outstanding notices
- Stores what matters from their inbox in the files
What you get
No supplier is left waiting on an address nobody reads any more.
The situation
Their access stays active weeks later.
What you do
- Revokes access on their last day
What you get
The account reflects who works here.
The situation
Their account is deleted and their actions vanish from the history.
What you do
- Deactivates rather than deletes
What you get
The record of what they did is kept.
The situation
Nobody knows what was outstanding in their area.
What you do
- Checks what was waiting on their action
What you get
The handover starts with a list.
The situation
The knowledge was in their head and nowhere else.
What you do
- Records decisions in the files before the departure
What you get
The context outlives the person.
This article answers
- an employee handling documentation is leaving
- handover when someone leaves
- what to do with the requests of someone leaving
- deactivating a user and their files