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Ask Slashdot: Dealing With User Resignation From an IT Perspective?
New submitter recaptcha writes Today one of my fellow workers has announced he has found another job and will be leaving our company in two weeks' time. This is all above board and there is no disgruntled employee scenario here; he is simply working through his notice period and finishing up some jobs. I have already set some fileserver folders to Read-Only for him and taken a backup of his mailbox in case he empties it on the last day. Which best practices do you follow that will prevent a resigning user from causing any damage (deliberately or not) in these last days of employment before his account is disabled?
I've known many people who have tendered resignation letters and are then immediately ostracized by the company, security follows them around everywhere, they're asked to leave the building immediately, etc....
Don't do that. If this person wanted to cause damage, he would do so without announcing his resignation. Take some precautions, but don't treat him like an outsider. He's still an employee during his notice period; treat him like one.
Remember, he's leaving somewhere where he spent a good 1/3rd of his life. Change is not easy, and paranoid asshole-ish behavior makes it 100x as hard. Plus, you want him to be an ally to your company in the future, and not a potential enemy.
There should already be backups in place and security safeguards to keep such an employee -- as much as possible -- from causing harm. Employees leave all the time, planned or unplanned, willingly or not. Certainly you want to make sure all their uncompleted tasks are turned over to someone else, but preparations should have already been in place in case health problems or personal issues cause a sudden departure.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
If that's the case, don't be a dick about it. Instead of "Go work from home for the two weeks because we're afraid you're going to fuck us over." Say, "Enjoy the next two weeks of paid vacation on us as a parting gift. Best of luck on your career."
Both accomplish the exact same thing, but one of them doesn't create dicks out of good employees. I mean what's the chance he's going to be productive those two weeks anyway?
And it's a terrible way to go about things.
Treating exiting employees like criminals when there's no established reason to doesn't improve workplace security - it just means that the person outside your company with the most current stories about how you operate has a story about how you treated them badly.
You should absolutely be able to revoke people's powers, etc, but that's an "after they've left" step. Any damage you think you're preventing, they've already had the opportunity to do.
You have data backups & resiliency in place as a matter of policy, right?
What's policy (probably HR's responsibility) for this scenario? That's what you do: follow policy, nothing more, nothing less. If there's no policy or procedure, then you do exactly that: nothing.
Don't improvise. This is an HR issue. You have NO idea what legal or other policy minefields you're stepping into. There are only downsides for you.
This. Last place I worked, I gave about 3 weeks notice (I said "x day is my last day" essentially) and emphasized in my resignation letter my full intent to continue to be as effective/useful to the company as I could for the full duration of my notice.
A higher-up drove 45 minutes from the head office to greet me on the last day of my notice to thank me personally and shake my hand because HE HAD NEVER SEEN ANYONE ACTUALLY DO THIS BEFORE.
EVERY SINGLE one of my coworkers saw this, mind you. I guarantee it made an impression, because they all couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day.
When an employee resigns on non-hostile terms, don't treat them badly, instead show them how much you value them. It sets a great example for the remaining employees, and boosts morale across the board.
Shame that job paid so badly, I really liked the people there...