Human Resources · Daily operations · 10 min read

Offboard an employee and place dispute holds

Give notice, approve the separation, clear it, terminate on the last day, close it after the final settlement, and stop a leaver with a hold.

Before you begin

• Offboarding and terminations must be on in Applications > Employees > Features.
• hr.offboard runs the process. hr.offboard.approve approves, decides waivers, revokes access, terminates early and reinstates. hr.hold.manage places and releases holds.
• Only an employee in Probation, Active or Suspended can be given notice, and only one separation can be open for a person.
• The person who recorded a separation cannot approve it.
• An offboarding checklist for the person's contract type sets notice days, the departments that must clear, company assets and when sign-in ends. See Organization setup, features and reports.

Steps

Give notice

1. Open Employees > Offboarding > Terminations and select Start offboarding.
2. Choose the Employee, the Reason (Resignation, Dismissal, Mutual agreement, End of contract, Probation not confirmed, Redundancy, Retirement, Death in service, Absconding, Transfer out of the company or Other), Notice given on, and Last working day. Effective date defaults to the last day.
3. Select Next. The preview shows notice required, notice served, leave that will be cancelled or runs past the last day, leave balances before and after, recoveries and assets, and when sign-in ends.
4. If the notice served is short and the checklist allows it, select Request a waiver of the notice and say why.
5. Select Give notice. The termination is created as Draft and the employee moves to Notice.

Approve and run the process

1. A different person with hr.offboard.approve opens the termination and selects Approve. Clearances, recoveries, the leave freeze and a default access cutoff are set up from the checklist.
2. A waiver is decided by a second person: Decide notice waiver, Decide clearance waiver or Decide recovery waiver.
3. Record each department's Clearance decision: Cleared, Blocked (say what is outstanding), Not applicable, Request a waiver, or Back to pending.
4. Use Refresh what is owed. For each asset choose that it was returned, recovered from final pay, or a waiver request.
5. Select Freeze leave. If leave runs past the last day, choose to keep it on purpose or cancel it too.
6. Select Freeze inputs once every recovery is decided.
7. Select Schedule access cutoff with a future date and time, or Use checklist default. An approver can select Revoke access now.
8. Read the Guard checklist. When nothing blocks, select Move to cleared.

Terminate and close

1. On the last day, select Terminate. To end earlier, an approver selects Terminate before the last day and gives a reason.
2. When payroll shows the settlement Paid, select Close.

Place a hold

1. Open Employees > Offboarding > Dispute holds and select Place hold. Choose the employee and Kind (Dispute, Legal, Investigation or Other), and say what the hold is for.
2. A different person releases it with Release and a reason.

What happens next

• Terminating sets the employee to Terminated, ends sign-in and sends payroll a termination event with identifiers and dates only. HR shows no money amounts.
• Payroll prepares the final settlement. The Settlement tile moves Not started, Draft, Calculated, Reviewed, Approved, Posted, Paid, Closed.
• An open hold is adopted by the employee's termination and blocks termination.

Worked example. Notice is given on 2 Oct 2026 with a last day of 20 Oct and 30 days required. Notice served is 18 days, shortfall 12. If the checklist allows, you request a waiver; another approver decides it. Without it, the notice item stays blocking.

Good to know

• 'The last day cannot be before the notice.' and 'The last day cannot be before they joined.'
• 'This employee already has a separation in progress.'
• 'A different person must approve a separation you recorded.' and 'A different person must decide a waiver you requested.'
• Moving to cleared with open items: 'This cannot be cleared yet', listing each blocker. A new blocker, such as a reissued asset, drops the record back to Notice.
• With an open hold: 'This separation cannot be terminated yet.' naming the holds. 'A different person must release a hold you placed.'
• Early termination by someone who is not an approver: 'Terminating before the last day needs an approver.' Before the day: 'Their last day has not come yet.'
• Closing too soon: 'Payroll has not reported the final settlement paid or closed.'
• You can cancel a separation that has not ended (reason required). Reinstating a terminated employee needs an approver and a reason.
• After inputs are frozen, a change is refused: 'The settlement inputs are frozen; this item is locked.'
• Anyone with hr.employee.view in scope can see leaver reasons and hold reasons in the lists.