In an era of high-employment, this is a sensitive subject – but must me addressed none the less. Terminating an employee is never fun. As a business owner, you have to worry about the human resources ramifications of what you are about to do (making it a clean fire with progressive discipline policies, etc.).  However, there are also information technology related concerns surrounding every employee termination. These concerns really fall under the larger umbrella of security – but I assume you already know how to block their physical access to your offices.

IT-wise, prior to terminating the employee, you need to figure out a few things:

Communications

• Email: Will you forward their email? if so, to whom? if not, what will you do with that mailbox? (delete it, archive it, etc.)
  • Recommendation: If you’re running an Exchange server, which many businesses are today, we recommend changing the password to the account and adding the mailbox to another employee’s Outlook.
• Voice Mail: Pretty much the same options as email, depending on the features of your phone/voice mail system
  • Recommendation: If you’re running a newer voice mail system or some kind of unified communications platform, where the voice mails are emailed to the recipient, then our email recommendation above handles this for you.
• Faxes: If you employee happened to have a dedicated fax line, you will need to adjust where those faxes go based on the technology used to receive faxes.
  • Recommendation: If you are using a fax-to-email service like myfax.com or efax.com or are on a unified communications platform, then my email recommendations handle this. If you have a fax line going directly to the user’s PC, you’ll either want to grant access to that PC by another employee or move the fax modem and management software to a different employee’s PC. (It would be easier to just get a fax-to-email service from here forward).
• Mobile Phones: Assuming they are using a company-issued phone, you need to be able to wipe their handheld of email, contacts, etc.
  
  • Recommendation: If you are running Blackberry Enterprise Server or Windows Mobile and the devices are provisioned correctly, this should not be an issue. If not, make sure the device is in your hands before termination
    

Access

Aside from any physical access, you’ll want to make sure that the terminated employee no longer has access to any network resources.This includes:

• Windows Server – Active Directory: Provides login access to Windows domain servers and Exchange email – most small to medium businesses use this
• Remote Access / Virtual Private Network (VPN): Changing their password on their Active Directory account may resolve this (you can also turn off VPN access from here if the server is providing it through the Routing and Remote Access service) otherwise, you will need to disable their account whatever appliance (e.g. firewall or SSL VPN appliance) or service (e.g. Himachi) is providing the remote access.
• Line of Business Applications: Examples include: QuickBooks, SalesForce.com, etc.

You should have someone (your managed IT services firm, or IT manager for example) prepared to make these changes just before calling the employee to be terminated into your office. Make the necessary communications and security changes and have the employee escorted back to their desk to gathering their things. Do not let them touch the computer again.

Depending on the complexity of your company’s network and your technology skill level, you may need help from a qualified IT consultant to knock all of this out. Don’t be afraid of asking for help. Missing an important email.voicemail or fax could cost you revenue as you well know, and, leaving any points of access open to terminated employees is a scary proposition as well.

Again, don’t forget the HR side of terminating en employee. If you want to avoid having to pay unemployment over a technicality or steer clear of discrimination claims, then I strongly suggest that you engage an HR consultant. I have used Carrie George of George HR with great results.