When an employee leaves your business, it's vital to carefully manage their departure to protect your company's data and systems. Offboarding staff safely means ensuring that all access to your IT resources is properly removed and that sensitive information is secured. This helps prevent accidental data loss, reduces the risk of cyberattacks, and supports compliance with UK regulations like the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.
Why this matters for UK SMEs
Failing to properly offboard staff can lead to serious consequences. For example, if a former employee still has access to your email or cloud systems, they might unintentionally or deliberately expose customer data or internal documents. This can cause downtime, damage your reputation, and even result in fines from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if personal data is compromised. Additionally, keeping unused accounts active can create vulnerabilities that cybercriminals exploit.
A typical scenario
Consider a UK SME with around 50 employees. When a team member leaves, their manager informs the IT department or external IT provider. Without a clear process, the employee's access to systems might remain active for days or weeks. This delay can lead to confusion over who is responsible for data stored in their accounts, and increase the risk of data leakage. A trusted IT partner would have an offboarding checklist and automation in place to promptly disable accounts, archive important data, and update access permissions, minimising risk and ensuring business continuity.
Practical offboarding checklist
- Review and document all accounts and systems the employee can access – including email, cloud services, internal databases, and physical devices.
- Immediately disable or delete user accounts on the employee's last working day, or as soon as possible.
- Change shared passwords and update any system credentials the employee knew.
- Secure and archive important data from the employee's devices and accounts, ensuring it is accessible to authorised staff.
- Retrieve company devices such as laptops, phones, and security tokens, and check for any unauthorised software or data.
- Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts to reduce the risk of unauthorised access.
- Maintain detailed logs of access changes and offboarding actions for audit and compliance purposes.
- Ask your IT provider: Do you have a formal offboarding process? How quickly do you revoke access? Can you provide reports confirming actions taken?
- Check your internal policies align with Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001 good practice, including timely access removal and secure data handling.
Next steps
Offboarding is a critical part of managing IT risk and compliance for your business. If you don't already have a clear process, speak with a trusted managed IT service provider or IT advisor who understands UK SME needs. They can help you establish practical procedures, automate key steps, and ensure your business stays secure and audit-ready when staff change.