Employee Termination Checklist

Voluntary resignations, involuntary terminations, and layoffs/RIFs each follow different paths — final-pay deadlines, severance eligibility, and unemployment-insurance posture all turn on the type. Capture the effective date the consultant goes off payroll, not the meeting date, since several state final-pay clocks run from the effective date.

State law on final paychecks varies sharply. California requires payment of all final wages, including accrued PTO, on the day of an involuntary termination; Massachusetts on the same day; many other states by the next regular payday. The consultant's work-state controls — not the firm's HQ state. Get this wrong and you owe waiting-time penalties.

If a separation agreement is being offered, confirm the release language, non-disparagement, and re-affirmed non-solicit and confidentiality clauses. Consultants 40+ get the OWBPA 21-day consideration / 7-day revocation windows; for group layoffs the consideration period extends to 45 days with a disclosure schedule. Loop in outside employment counsel for any termination involving a protected-class concern.

Pull the consultant's current allocations from the resourcing system (Harvest, BigTime, or the engagement-management tool of record). For each active SOW, note the role (workstream lead vs. contributor), in-flight deliverables, and the next client-facing milestone. Subcontractor or secondee arrangements may have client-notification clauses with specific notice windows.

For each active workstream, name a single replacement owner before the termination meeting. Update the RAID log so risks and dependencies don't drop. Avoid the common failure mode of re-assigning to the engagement manager as a placeholder — that just delays the real reassignment by two weeks while the EM is overloaded.

The engagement partner decides what the client hears, when, and from whom. Standard posture: brief the executive sponsor by phone before the consultant's last day, name the replacement, reassure on continuity. Do not let the consultant tell the client first — clients should hear it from the partner, not via a goodbye email.

Two-person meeting: the consultant's manager (or engagement partner) plus an HR representative. Schedule near the end of the day to minimize disruption; for remote consultants, use a video call with both meeting hosts present. Coordinate timing with IT so access is revoked at the moment the meeting concludes — not before, not hours after.

Hand the consultant the written notice including effective date, final-pay details, benefits continuation, and reminders of post-employment obligations (NDA, IP assignment, non-solicit, non-compete where enforceable). Keep the conversation brief and factual; do not negotiate the decision in the room.

For voluntary departures, run a structured exit interview covering reasons for leaving, manager feedback, engagement experience, and tooling pain points. For involuntary terminations, skip the interview and document only what the consultant volunteers. Capture the consultant's forwarding email and consent for alumni-network contact.

Include all earned wages through the effective date, accrued and unused PTO per the firm's payout policy, any earned but unpaid utilization or signing bonus, and reimbursable expenses already approved. PTO payout is mandatory in California, Colorado, and several other states regardless of firm policy — confirm against the consultant's work-state.

The plan administrator (or the firm's COBRA TPA) must issue the election notice within 14 days of the qualifying event. The notice covers medical, dental, vision, and any FSA balance; HSA balances are owned by the consultant. Missing the deadline exposes the firm to ERISA penalties and potential premium liability.

Pull all unsubmitted receipts from the corporate card and process or write them off before final pay runs. Cancel the card on the effective date — not before, since travel for the final week may still post. Outstanding cash advances or uncleared client expenses should net against final pay where the offer letter permits.

Disable the consultant's account in Okta / Entra ID at the moment the termination meeting concludes — this propagates to Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and most SaaS tools via SCIM. Revoke MFA tokens, browser session cookies via a forced sign-out, and any long-lived API tokens or personal access tokens issued for engagement work.

For on-site consultants, collect the laptop in the termination meeting. For remote consultants, ship a prepaid return box and trigger a Jamf or Intune remote lock and FileVault/BitLocker key escrow until the device returns. Do not wipe until the device is in firm hands and the engagement archive (step above) has confirmed all artifacts are recovered.

For each active engagement, notify the client's IT contact to disable the consultant's VDI account, client VPN, and any guest SSO. Some clients (especially financial-services and healthcare) require written confirmation of access removal within a contractual window — check the BAA or DPA for each engagement.

Mark the consultant inactive in BambooHR / Rippling, terminate in payroll (Gusto, ADP), and close out the resourcing tool. Update Salesforce or HubSpot to remove the consultant from any opportunity-team or account-team role so client-facing emails don't continue to copy them.

Execute the communication plan agreed with the engagement partner: phone call from partner to executive sponsor, follow-up email naming the replacement and continuity arrangements, and removal of the consultant from recurring status meetings. Avoid generic firm-wide announcements that name involuntary terminations.

For voluntary departures in good standing, add to the alumni network with the consultant's consent captured at the exit interview. Alumni become referral sources, future client contacts, and rehires — the firms that treat offboarding as a relationship transition rather than an end recover meaningful business through this channel.