Leaver's Checklist Template

What is this?

Whenever an employee or contractor leaves an organisation / project there are a number of activities that need to be done to ensure that the organisation / project is not vulnerable as a result of that departure. It is also important that organisations’ learn lessons when employees leave to see whether it would be in the organisation’s best interest to change working practices and / or procedures. A specialist ‘exit interview’, ideally conducted by HR professionals is the best way to identify such information.

This leaver’s checklist is suitable for a planned departure i.e. when an employee gives notice or a contractor reaches the end of their contract. Whilst many of the items on the checklist will be useful when staff leave as a result of disciplinary issues, in such circumstances there will be many more activities that need to happen to ensure that the staff’ departure does not breach any employment laws. It is highly recommended that in disciplinary related departures that specialist HR advice is sought at that internal procedures are followed to the letter.

Why it’s useful?

This template will be useful for the following reasons:

• The checklist is broken down into 2 easy sections – what do to as soon as you learn of the departure and what to do on the day of the departure
• The checklist applies whether the departing person is a permanent member of staff or a contractor
• Ensures that important tasks that would leave your organisation / project open to a breach of security are not overlooked
• Can be used in its ‘vanilla form’ where your organisation doesn’t already have a checklist
• As a basis to develop / tailor your own tailored checklist

Balance Global also recommend their Knowledge Transfer template for use when senior staffs depart to assist with planning hand-over activities

NOTE: this checklist does not cover in detail any specialist HR activities such as calculating final pay or exit from a pension plan.

How to use it?

• Download the template (replacing the logo with your own if required)
• Review the tasks and delete any that are not required for your environment
• For each leaver add names for who is going to be responsible for each section / individual task
• Use the form – ticking off actions as they are done!

Balance Global hopes this template makes a difference to the success of your project. Please send us any suggested improvements to this template so we can share them with our site community.