Why do former employees still have active logins?
IT departments often lack timely communication from HR regarding departure dates, leaving accounts active long after employees leave. This breakdown in the offboarding process leaves systems exposed to former staff retaining access for months or even years.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Relying on manual offboarding checklistsDid this help you?
- 2Using single sign-on (SSO) for immediate suspension when deactivatedDid this help you?
- 3Auditing onboarding and offboarding processes upon starting a new management positionDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“The amount of times I've seen a former coworker's login still active months after they left is genuinely terrifying”source ↗
“how do you know HR is promptly informing you of the roll-off date so you can start the process? And I was like… great. How do you know HR is promptly informing you of the roll-off date so you can start the process? And I was like… great.”source ↗
“Rumor has it my credentials are still marked as active at somewhere i havent been at in about 3 years.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 3How to get laptops back from remote employees
- 6Locked out of new network switches because the consultant left
- 3Why do CRM apps share my customer data with other companies?