Departing employees must review their hard drives, emails, and voice mail accounts as well as any electronic records stored on external devices, such as USB tokens. The following steps should be taken for each:
1. Classify and file all records into their proper folders according to the classification schedule;
2. Remove any encryption, passwords or access restrictions on records you are filing to ensure they are accessible to authorized staff (put any access restrictions for very sensitive records at the file level rather than on the individual documents and give the password to your manager or data steward);
3. Delete all documents that are transitory in nature to clear up your hard drive and email account according to the records retention schedule;
4. Remove any non-work related or personal items (e.g. resumes, personal correspondence, family photographs, etc.).
