What should you pay attention to when a colleague is leaving?

Terminating an employment relationship involves numerous administrative tasks, alongside often needing to quickly fill the vacant position. However, there are certain steps that must not be missed when a colleague is leaving. These are essential both to ensure the termination of the employment is legal and to minimize complications within the company. It's necessary to settle any outstanding leave, allocated rights, and tools provided for work, as well as to adhere to certain deadlines and formal aspects. In this post, we've gathered what employers should particularly pay attention to during the termination of the employment and the departure of an exiting employee, including student workers.

When can an employee leave the company?

An employment relationship, which is a contractual relationship aimed at performing work, is established between the employee and the employer by signing an employment contract. This contract must be in writing, and any amendments, termination, or cessation must also occur in writing.

It's important to differentiate between cessation and termination. The cessation of an employment relationship occurs automatically, without the intent of the parties, in cases defined by law. Such cases include the cessation of the employer without a legal successor, the death of the employee, or the expiration of a fixed-term employment contract.

If the dissolution of the employment is attributable to the will of the parties, then we speak of termination.

Termination of Employment

There are two further scenarios in terminating an employment relationship, depending on whether it relates to one or both parties.

Unilateral Termination

Both the employer and the employee can terminate the employment by notice, with the employer required to justify the termination, while the employee is not. Generally, the employment ends 30 days after the notice period, except for immediate termination.

Mutual Agreement

In cases of mutual agreement, the parties terminate the employment by mutual consent, which does not need to be justified, and they freely determine the date of cessation. In cases of mutual agreement, the employer is not obligated to pay severance, though the parties can agree on this. There are no strict legal expectations as long as cooperation and good faith exist between the parties, allowing them to flexibly define the terms of termination.

Key Legal Terms Related to Termination

Notice Period

The notice period is uniformly thirty days, applicable to both fixed and indefinite employment contracts and for both employer and employee terminations. The notice period represents the number of additional calendar days to be worked following the termination of the employment contract – the employment relationship truly ends only after this period.

The minimum thirty-day period can increase depending on the duration the employee has spent with the employer, and the employment contract may specify a different duration.

Immediate Termination

In cases of immediate termination, there is no notice period, and the employment ends on the day following the delivery of the termination statement to the other party. Both the employer and the employee can use it, applicable in both definite and indefinite employment contracts. During the probationary period, the parties can do this without justification; in all other cases, the immediate termination must be justified and can only be applied in the circumstances specified by law.

Justification of Employer's Termination

The employer must justify the termination of employment in writing in all cases, clearly stating the reason for termination.

The reason for an employer's regular termination can only be related to the employee's behavior, capabilities, or the employer's operations. This might include the employee's psychological or health incapacity, lack of cooperation, or failure to comply with the employer's lawful instructions, or being chronically late or absent.

For the termination of a fixed-term employment by the employer, this can only occur in cases listed in the Labor Code:

• During bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings,
• Based on reasons related to the employee's capabilities, or
• If maintaining the employment becomes impossible due to an unavoidable external cause.

Immediate termination by the employer must also be justified. This can occur if the employee:

• Significantly breaches their essential obligations from the employment, attributable to them, or
• Exhibits behavior that makes maintaining the employment relationship impossible.

Severance

According to the Labor Code, the employee is entitled to severance if their employment ends due to the employer's termination or the cessation without a legal successor. The amount of severance increases with the duration of employment with the employer, starting from one month's pay after three years, two months after five years, increasing by another month every five years, up to a maximum of six months.

Severance is not due if the termination is based on the employee's behavior related to the employment or capabilities (not related to health).

Rules for Student Workers

In the case of employing students, the protective rules of the Labor Code do not apply. Therefore, they are not entitled to leave or severance, there are no prohibitions on termination, and there is no notice period, regardless of whether the employment is through a direct relationship or a student cooperative.

Departing Colleague: Steps Not to Skip

Let's look at some technical tasks that should be attended to when an employee is leaving to avoid future complications.

Protection of Company Data

One of the most sensitive losses for any business is if sensitive company data falls into unauthorized or competitive hands. The leakage of data from a CRM system, internal communications, confidential documents, or business and strategic plans can result in significant market losses.

It is essential to manage these issues with clear and accessible written policies and data protection regulations, outlining the consequences of breaches. The goal is to make the employee aware of what intellectual property and business secrets mean, where their boundaries lie, and what sanctions can follow their breach.

Additionally, it's prudent to protect against data theft from an IT perspective. It is an accepted practice that the company monitors employees' company emails, logs their activities in the electronic system, and information related to data backups. This is lawful as long as the involved party is made aware of it. Thus, the employee is warned that their activities are being monitored and recorded, specifying the data this restriction affects.

Email Address and Mailbox Management

It is important to highlight that the content of a workplace email account is considered personal data, and any operation on it qualifies as data processing, thus falling under the scope of GDPR regulations. According to the principle of "purpose limitation" of the regulation, the data controller must delete personal data without delay if the purpose of data processing has ceased.

Therefore, it is advisable to sort out personal correspondence from the mailbox by the last day of employment at the latest. If the remaining content of the mailbox were to be archived, it's important to know that any later search in this content qualifies as new data processing. According to GDPR rules, this can only be done with the proper notification of the affected party, even after the termination of the employment.

Practically, another question is what should happen to the departing colleague's email address. During the last weeks of employment, it may be appropriate to inform the company's clients about the employee's departure via an automatic message, possibly indicating the name and contact details of the new contact person. This setting should be maintained for a few months after the departure, and then permanently delete the email address and its associated mailbox.

Revocation of Accesses and Permissions

If the commencement of employment was precisely documented, then upon termination of the employment, we can easily inventory the systems used by the departing employee so that all assigned rights are revoked at the end of the last working day.

This includes revoking access rights to the building, applications and services, and all distributed licenses and entries, such as rights related to Google, Facebook, and WordPress accounts.

There are still platforms that multiple users might use with a common password, which may remain unchanged after the colleague's departure. It is advisable to change such login data periodically, including passwords and possibly alarm or gate codes.

To prevent abuses, it's advisable to assign accesses based on the principle of the least privilege, i.e., everyone should only have access to data absolutely necessary for their work. This is especially true for the installation of office programs and software updates. Most spyware or ransomware can only enter the network through user intervention, so it's wise to be frugal with distributed privileges.

Higher-Level Privileges

In the case of a colleague departing from a managerial or key position, care must be taken to revoke the company registration and signing authorities. This might involve initiating the revocation of the company registration right at the Court of Registration, but also the termination of electronic signing rights. The goal is to ensure that after departure, the departing colleague cannot take any action that could cause harm or costs to the company. If the departing employee could represent the company towards authorities or other organizations, it's advisable to notify them during the departure process that the representation authority has ceased.

Take advantage of Y Student Cooperative's quality services!

It is also important when employing students that the company is aware of the provisions related to the termination of employment and that their departure is handled with the same care regarding their accesses and rights as with adult employees.

At Y Student Cooperative, we provide all the support needed to strengthen our clients' companies with valuable, quality student labor. The establishment of employment is smooth, and our students can start working within 48 hours from the signing of the contract. We assist them with training, mentoring, and administration. In addition, we handle all administration, payroll accounting, and payment comprehensively to relieve our partners of these burdens. Contact us at our contact points, request our unique offer today!