Every organisation has a joiners movers leavers process, even if it is a handful of emails and a spreadsheet. HR, IT, payroll, facilities and line managers each hold part of it. The risk sits in the gaps between them: a starter with no laptop on day one, a mover who still has access to the finance site, a leaver whose files nobody can find a few months later.
This post gives practical checklists for each stage in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint, with the UK steps HR and payroll must cover, and then shows where OnboardPoint, Handover Pro and DirectoryPoint fit.
Who owns what?
Give every task one owner and a due date. A common split looks like this:
| Area | Usual owner | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Right to work, contract, HR record | HR | Checks, written statement, policies, leaving date |
| Accounts, licences, devices, access | IT | Microsoft 365 account, groups, laptop, phone |
| Tax, pay and pension | Payroll | P45 or starter checklist, leaving date, final pay |
| Plan, buddy, training, handover | Line manager | First-week plan, introductions, knowledge handover |
| Desk, building pass, equipment | Facilities | Pass, keys, desk, returns |
Joiners checklist
Before the start date
- Right to work. GOV.UK says you must check a job applicant's right to work before you employ them, online with a share code, from original documents or through an identity service provider. Make a copy that cannot be changed and record the date of the check.
- Other checks. GOV.UK's employ someone step by step guide notes that some roles, for example in healthcare or working with children, may need a DBS check. It also says to check whether the person needs to be put into a workplace pension.
- Written statement. The principal statement of employment particulars must be given on the first day of employment, with the wider written statement within 2 months.
- Payroll. You must tell HMRC about a new employee on or before their first pay day. GOV.UK's new employee guide says to use their P45, or HMRC's starter checklist if you do not have one, and to register them through a Full Payment Submission.
- Microsoft 365 account. Create the user and assign licences in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. Microsoft's guide to adding users notes that by default the user must change their password when they first sign in. Add them to the right groups, teams and sites at the same time.
- Equipment and building. Laptop, phone, desk, building pass and any specialist kit, ready and tested.
- A welcome plan. Name a buddy, set the first-week plan and tell the starter who to ask for what.
Day one
- Sign-in works on every device the starter needs.
- Directory profile complete: photo, job title, department and manager.
- Policies to read, with acknowledgements recorded.
- Introductions to the team, the buddy and key contacts.
The first weeks
- Role training booked and recorded.
- Probation review dates set in the HR record.
- Regular check-ins with the manager, and a quick review of what was missing on day one so the next starter does not hit the same gap.
Movers checklist
Movers are easy to overlook, because nobody new arrives and nobody leaves, so access tends to pile up.
- Profile. Update job title, department and manager. The manager field matters beyond the org chart: when an account is eventually deleted, Microsoft gives the manager access to that person's OneDrive by default.
- Access. Add what the new role needs, then remove what the old role needed: teams, sites, shared mailboxes and business apps.
- Ownership. If they owned SharePoint sites or teams for the old role, hand them to someone else. Our post on SharePoint site ownership covers why every site needs two owners.
- Contract. GOV.UK says employers must tell employees about changes to their written statement within one month of making the change.
- Pay and hours. Update payroll, and recalculate holiday if the working pattern changes.
- Handover. Pass on open work to whoever takes over the old role, and book training for the new one.
Leavers checklist
HR and payroll
- Holiday. During their notice period the worker may be able to take whatever is left of their statutory leave. GOV.UK's guidance on holiday before leaving a job says employers must pay for untaken statutory leave, and must not take money from final pay for leave taken beyond the entitlement unless that was agreed in writing beforehand.
- Payroll. GOV.UK's guide on what to do when an employee leaves says to put the leaving date on their payroll record when you last pay them, and you must give them a P45.
- Records. Keep right to work copies for two years after the person stops working for you. Keep holiday and holiday pay records for at least six years, as GOV.UK's holiday pay guidance requires from 6 April 2026. Keep the starter information in your payroll records for the current year and the three following tax years.
- Equipment. Laptop, phone, pass and keys returned and logged.
IT and Microsoft 365
This is the core of any offboarding checklist for Microsoft 365. Microsoft's guide to removing a former employee sets out this order:
- Prevent the former employee from signing in to Microsoft 365.
- Save the contents of their mailbox if someone is taking over their work, or if there is a legal need.
- Wipe and block their mobile device to remove organisation data from it.
- Forward their email to another employee, or convert it to a shared mailbox.
- Give another employee access to their OneDrive and Outlook data.
- Remove the licence, which you can then assign to someone else.
- Delete the account.
Two details catch people out. First, Microsoft's page on OneDrive retention and deletion says the OneDrive clean-up only starts when the account is deleted, not when sign-in is blocked or the licence removed, and the default retention period after deletion is 30 days, which an admin can change. Second, the manager is given access to the OneDrive by default, so the manager field must be right, and Microsoft recommends also setting a secondary owner, who takes over when no manager is set. Retention policies and labels take precedence over this process.
Knowledge and ownership
- Sites, teams and groups the leaver owns, handed to a named person before the account goes.
- Files only they understand, sharing links they created and anything checked out to them.
- Open work, recurring tasks, and supplier and client contacts.
- A handover the manager and the successor have read and agreed.
The leaver handover is where knowledge is easiest to lose. A document written in someone's last few days rarely captures what they knew, so start it as soon as the leaving date is set.
Keep evidence as you go
When someone asks who removed access, or when a right to work check was done, you need a record of who did what and when. Microsoft has some building blocks. Lifecycle workflows in Microsoft Entra can run joiner, mover and leaver tasks automatically, such as emailing a manager before a start date or disabling accounts, with workflow history and audit logs, but they need Microsoft Entra ID Governance or Microsoft Entra Suite licences. Microsoft also offers an Employee onboarding list template and an Employee onboarding team site template, which give you a starting checklist and a home page for new starters. Both are starting points you fill in and maintain yourself.
Where OnboardPoint, Handover Pro and DirectoryPoint fit
OnboardPoint runs employee onboarding, internal moves and offboarding in SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. One record per person creates dated tasks for HR, IT, facilities, payroll, managers and buddies, so everyone sees their part and nobody chases by email.
- One board. Every joiner, mover and leaver on one board, with dated work for every owner. HR, IT, facilities and payroll each see only their part.
- Day-one and last-day gates. Checks that must be done before a start date or a leaving date, in one place.
- The first 90 days. A starter home and a plan that carries on after day one, with a pre-start portal for people before they have an account.
- Evidence packs. A record of who did what and when, ready when someone asks.
- Schools and trusts. A single central record per academy, KCSIE checks with dates and checker, supply staff and volunteers.
Leavers go through the same tracked process as joiners, and you can move from a spreadsheet checklist and run both side by side. Records stay in your Microsoft 365 tenant, in SharePoint lists and libraries, and OnboardPoint needs no Microsoft Graph permission to start.
For the leaver handover, Handover Pro maps what a leaver owns in SharePoint and produces a cited handover with sign-off.
DirectoryPoint helps at both ends. New joiners can get to know colleagues privately, at their own pace, through Discover decks, and site owners see missing photos, managers and job titles, with corrections sent to IT. It never changes your directory data itself.
Next steps
Write down the tasks you already do at each stage, give each one an owner and a due date, and check your leaver steps against Microsoft's list above. OnboardPoint has a 14-day trial of every feature, counted from set-up, with no licence key. To talk through your process first, book a free 30-minute call with APPS 365.
