Why offboarding takes three weeks

A clean offboarding takes about 90 minutes of IT time

You disable an account in your identity provider, which automatically revokes access across all Single Sign-On (SSO) tools. Devices are remotely wiped, emails forwarded to a manager, and CRM accounts seamlessly reassigned.

The chaotic version takes three weeks. It involves hunting down forgotten Figma, Loom, or Notion accounts tied to personal password managers, chasing unreturned laptops, and discovering rogue vendor charges months down the line. The Golden Rule: Whether an employee's departure is clean or chaotic depends entirely on how they were onboarded. In IT, this is the "Joiner, Mover, Leaver" lifecycle. A rushed onboarding phase guarantees a messy exit.