Contractor Still Have Your Passwords? How to Offboard a Team Member Safely

Last week my teenager was cleared to play hockey again after six weeks on the sidelines, and his team had one more big tournament coming up in just a few days. I called the coach, booked the hotel, and mapped out the next five days in one sitting. Yes, we'll be there. That was easy because nothing in my home or my business was sitting around waiting to fall apart.

That's the real perk of a fire drill. Yes, it keeps you safe. But the bigger payoff is being able to say yes. When a podcast host emails with a last-minute cancellation, or you're invited to speak, or your dream client shows up, loose ends turn "of course" into "let me get back to you," and the opportunity can be gone.

One of the loose ends that quietly stops a lot of yeses is someone else holding a key to your business. Your social media VA still has the logins. Your developer still has admin on your site. Your bookkeeper still has the bank portal. Or worse, someone holds your passwords as leverage, or changes one out of spite. This drill is about closing that door, and it works just as well in reverse when you onboard someone new.

The quick version

• The alarm: someone leaves and nobody revokes access the same day, or nobody has a full list of what they could get into.
• Reacting: an informal "we'll get to it" offboarding, then a public standoff over access and payment.
• Responding: every departure triggers the same checklist, and the checklist is backed by a running access inventory.
• The Fire Extinguisher: a written offboarding checklist, a running access inventory, same-day revocation, no single key holder, and contractor agreements that address returning and deleting access.
• Already burning: reset every credential you know about, document everything, and call an attorney if anyone is withholding access.

Your free homework

Make a list of every person who has access to anything in your business. Next to each name, write every place and thing they can get to. Then ask: should they still have these keys?

Not sure what's smoldering? Run the Smoke Detector: 11 questions, about three minutes, and it shows you which fires your business is most likely to have. Go use the Smoke Detector.

Keep Exploring

• Social Media Account Disabled? How to Protect Your Business Before You're Locked Out
• All the Business Fire Drills

Listen on your favorite podcast app: Listen to this episode (also on Apple Podcasts and Spotify).

Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional. This is general educational information, not legal advice for your situation.