People in the middle of a deal or with crucial know-how will be called to serve out their notice period for handover - which if the HR is switched-on is 1-3 mon

People in the middle of a deal or with crucial know-how will be called to serve out their notice period for handover - which if the HR is switched-on is 1-3 months. Usually some extra severance money will be offered as a sweetener compared to running away immediately. However, potential to do damage usually supersedes potential to benefit the business in the notice period. A company with sane HR has preventative policies in place: - Never have single-person key-man risk in the first place; always have a backup/deputy designated well in advance because anyone can be hit by a bus. Helps with covering holidays too. - For highly sensitive jobs like sysops or people dealing with customer money, revoke access to systems first thing in the morning, then tell them, then immediately escort them out. - Don't have shared or master passwords anywhere, but have user-based ACL instead so access can be revoked.