by R Shimoda

Created on: November 27, 2011   Last Updated: November 30, 2011

Unless you are very foolish, cleaning up your records when leaving a job is just as important as trying to cleaning up your projects before you leave.  For voluntary terminations (where you quit your job) or involuntary termination (where you are either fired or laid off), it is important to make sure you clean up as much as possible.  Especially if you're fired or laid off.  The only difference being that with a voluntary termination, you have the luxury of cleaning up your records whereas with involuntary termination, you have no or little notice before being asked to leave the building.

A basic assumption is whoever replaces you will have full access to anything left behind.  This includes emails, handwritten records, drawings, recordings, etc so it's important to make sure no critical records are left behind.  What would be considered critical records?  There are two categories of records, work-related and non-work related ones to consider.

Persons who work on classified programs or with company research and development projects understand the importance of not leaving records behind where their successors could end up seeing something that they aren't suppose to see.  For example, with the high level of competition among electronics company getting information on a competitor's newest project will allow a competitor to jump ahead by coming out with their version of a product first.  Recently when Apple Computer had prototype iPhones get lost or stolen, it popped up in the news.

To prevent work-related data from accidentally being passed on to a successor, you should confer with your supervisor to see if there are any projects that should be turned over to a co-worker or removed from your computer or deleted from records left to your successor.  Of course if you are involuntarily terminated this is not possible to do in a timely manner so it's your supervisor's problem.

What about non-work-related records?  As a general rule, the best thing to do is not to keep the records at work.  If at all possible, don't access your personal email from work unless you don't have choice.  Many companies have software on their computers that will keylog (record every key typed on the keyboard) and websurfing monitoring software (records every website you visit and keep track of how long you're there).  If you have the passwords and user names for your checking, credit cards and email accounts in the hands of

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