---
id: KB-CF-020
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/use-cases-by-capability/when-someone-leaves-the-team
idioma: en
categoria: casos-por-funcionalidad
audiencia: usuario
nivel: intermedio
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-CF-007, KB-CF-015, KB-CF-010]
citadoPor: [KB-CF-005]
---

# When someone leaves the team

_Access is cut in a minute. What that person was carrying takes three weeks to surface, and surfaces badly._

**Responde a:** 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

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.

> [!WARNING]
> 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

**En corto**

- Every request has a live owner, not a historical name.
- Important contacts know at least two people on your side.
- Whatever arrives by email lands in the file the same day.
- And deactivate rather than delete: it preserves who did what, which is exactly what gets asked later.

> [!NOTE]
> 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.

## Ejemplos

**The person handling supplier documentation leaves and three renewals are left with nobody chasing them.**

- Reassigns the open requests and introduces the replacement before the last day

→ The renewals carry on and suppliers reply to the right person, with no restart.

**Somebody leaves the team with eleven open files in their name and thirty suppliers awaiting their reply.**

- Reassigns their files before their last day
- Changes the recipient on the outstanding notices
- Stores what matters from their inbox in the files

→ No supplier is left waiting on an address nobody reads any more.

**Their access stays active weeks later.**

- Revokes access on their last day

→ The account reflects who works here.

**Their account is deleted and their actions vanish from the history.**

- Deactivates rather than deletes

→ The record of what they did is kept.

**Nobody knows what was outstanding in their area.**

- Checks what was waiting on their action

→ The handover starts with a list.

**The knowledge was in their head and nowhere else.**

- Records decisions in the files before the departure

→ The context outlives the person.