Offboarding Checklist Template

What is an offboarding checklist?

An offboarding checklist is a structured document that lists every task required when an employee leaves the organisation — covering knowledge transfer, access revocation, equipment return, and administrative closure. It assigns each task to a responsible person with a deadline so nothing falls through the cracks.

Offboarding is where organisations lose knowledge. When an employee resigns, the focus shifts to finding a replacement — and the departing person’s expertise walks out the door undocumented. A standardised checklist ensures that knowledge transfer happens before the last day, system access is revoked on schedule, and the transition is managed consistently regardless of department or seniority. Without one, each departure is handled ad hoc, and critical gaps only surface weeks later.

Who should use this template?

This template is for teams responsible for managing employee transitions:

• HR Business Partners — ensure every departure follows the same structured process across departments and locations
• Line Managers — coordinate knowledge transfer, task reassignment, and team communication before the employee’s last day
• IT Administrators — revoke system access, recover devices, and transfer digital assets on the correct dates
• Knowledge Managers — capture institutional knowledge before it leaves the organisation permanently

What’s included in this template?

The template has two parts: structured metadata fields and the offboarding body.

Metadata fields classify each departure:

• Employee name and department
• Last working day
• Manager responsible for the offboarding
• Offboarding status (initiated, in progress, completed)
• Replacement or interim assignee

Offboarding body covers every step:

• Knowledge transfer — list of documents, processes, and contacts the departing employee must hand over, with named recipients
• Access and equipment — checklist of systems to deactivate, devices to return, and badges to collect
• Administrative tasks — final payroll, benefits termination, exit interview scheduling, and reference policy
• Communication plan — internal announcement, client handover notifications, and team transition briefing
• Sign-off — confirmation from HR, manager, and IT that all items are complete

How to create and customise this template in Elium

1. Open the Template Builder — Go to your profile menu and select the Template Builder tab, or click “+ Create” and choose “Create a new template”.
2. Set the scope — Choose an icon, enable the template, and decide whether it applies platform-wide or to specific spaces (e.g. HR only).
3. Add structured fields — Click “Field” to add metadata: text fields for employee name and department, a date field for last working day, a user field for responsible manager, a tag field for status (pre-populate with “Initiated”, “In Progress”, “Completed”), and a text field for replacement. Mark employee name and last working day as mandatory.
4. Build the offboarding structure — Use the “+” button to add content blocks: a checklist block for knowledge transfer items, a checklist block for access and equipment tasks, a text block for administrative tasks, a text block for the communication plan, and a text block for sign-off confirmations.
5. Preview and save — Review the template layout, then save. HR and managers can now select it when initiating an offboarding, and you can apply it to existing content in bulk.

How AI helps you create and use this template

Capture faster. Tell Elium’s AI the departing employee’s role and department. It generates a tailored offboarding checklist pre-populated with relevant systems, typical handover documents, and standard administrative steps for that function — so the manager customises rather than builds from scratch.

Retrieve smarter. An HR partner asks Elium’s AI: “What knowledge transfer steps did we follow for the last senior engineer who left the Brussels office?” The AI returns the specific checklist, handover items, and lessons learned — so best practices from previous departures inform the current one.

Why teams use Elium for offboarding

Every departure is a knowledge risk. The cost is not just replacing the person — it is reconstructing what they knew. When offboarding is managed through scattered emails, undocumented knowledge vanishes and access revocation is delayed. Elium makes offboarding systematic: structured checklists ensure consistency, knowledge transfer is captured in searchable articles, and completed offboardings become reference material for future transitions.

Bouygues Construction — 53,500 employees across 80 countries — uses Elium to centralise people and operational knowledge. When employees transition between roles or leave the organisation, their knowledge stays accessible to colleagues across the business.