Agencies & Consultancies Employee Offboarding Standard Operating Procedure Template
Free employee offboarding SOP template for agencies. Step-by-step client handoff, knowledge transfer, tool access revocation, and portfolio documentation.
Purpose
Ensure every departing employee's client relationships, project knowledge, and institutional context are transferred to the remaining team before their last day. This SOP covers client relationship handoffs, project knowledge transfer, tool access revocation, and portfolio documentation so that no client feels the impact of a team change.
Scope
Covers voluntary and involuntary departures of full-time agency employees. Does not cover freelancer contract endings (see vendor management SOP) or temporary leave of absence procedures.
Prerequisites
- Resignation letter received or termination decision documented by HR
- Last working day confirmed and communicated to the departing employee
- Replacement hire identified or interim coverage plan approved by the agency owner
- Offboarding checklist template accessible in Google Drive or Asana
Roles & Responsibilities
HR / People Ops Lead
- Initiate the offboarding workflow on the day notice is given
- Schedule the exit interview for the last week of employment
- Process final paycheck, PTO payout, and benefits termination
Direct Manager
- Create the knowledge transfer plan within 48 hours of notice
- Assign a receiving team member for each client account the departing employee manages
- Oversee the client handoff process and attend handoff calls
IT / Operations Admin
- Revoke all tool access on the employee's last day (or immediately for involuntary terminations)
- Transfer file ownership in Google Drive, Figma, and Asana to the designated team member
- Recover any agency hardware (laptop, monitor, peripherals)
Procedure
On the day notice is given (or termination is decided), HR creates the offboarding project in Asana using the agency's offboarding template. This generates all tasks with owners and deadlines based on the last working day.
- aCreate a new Asana project from the Employee Offboarding template
- bSet the last working day as the deadline anchor for all tasks
- cAssign HR, the manager, and IT to their respective task sections
- dNotify the manager and IT admin via Slack that offboarding has been initiated
Completion Checklist
Key Performance Indicators
Client retention rate during employee transitions
100% of clients retained through the transition period
Knowledge transfer completion rate
100% of client accounts have documented handoff sessions
Tool access revocation timing
100% of access revoked within 4 hours of last working day end
Client satisfaction during transitions (post-transition survey)
4.0+ out of 5.0
Why This Matters for Agencies & Consultancies
When an agency employee leaves, the biggest risk is not losing the person — it is losing the client relationships and institutional knowledge they carry. Clients who feel forgotten during a team change start shopping for a new agency. A structured offboarding process transfers the relationship, not just the tasks, so the client's experience stays consistent even when the team behind it changes.
Common Mistakes
- ×Waiting until the last day to start client handoffs, leaving no time for the new contact to shadow and build rapport
- ×Not setting up email forwarding before deactivating the departing employee's Google Workspace account, causing client emails to bounce
- ×Skipping the client transition call for high-revenue accounts, which clients interpret as the agency not caring about their business
- ×Forgetting to revoke access to shared passwords in the agency's password manager
- ×Not documenting the departing employee's undocumented processes — the ones that live in their head and never made it into a shared Google Doc
Agencies & Consultancies-Specific Notes
Agency offboarding is more client-sensitive than most industries because every employee typically owns direct relationships with multiple external clients. A departing AM might be the only person a client has ever spoken with at the agency. The handoff cannot be a cold transfer — it requires a warm introduction, ideally on a call, with the departing employee explicitly endorsing the new contact. Agencies that do this well retain 95%+ of clients through transitions. Those that do not often see 10-20% of the departing AM's book of business churn within 90 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn More About Employee Offboarding
For a deeper look at building onboarding documentation, see our complete guide.