Philippines staffing guide
Remove Assistant Access When a Client Assignment Ends
A reassignment is an access event. Treat it with the same checklist as a departure, including shared files and delegated mailboxes.
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Access reviews often focus on people who leave the company. The quieter risk is the assistant who moves from one client to another and keeps the old client's folder permissions, distribution list membership, and saved browser session. The assignment ended, but the access did not. A reassignment should trigger the same removal discipline as a departure.
Trigger the review from the assignment record
Connect the access checklist to the client assignment system rather than to a calendar reminder. When an assignment is closed or transferred, the record should create a removal task with a due date. Include the outgoing assistant, the new owner, the systems involved, and the date access should end. Without a trigger, removal depends on someone remembering a conversation.
Inventory beyond the obvious login
List the client's shared drives, project management workspace, ticketing queues, email delegates, calendar permissions, e-signature templates, and any saved credentials in approved tools. Check group memberships, because a role-based group can grant access long after the individual account was removed. Include the client's own systems, which often sit outside the standard identity provider.
Remove, then verify from the other side
Removal is not complete when the admin clicks disable. Test by attempting to open a representative file or queue with the assistant's account, or ask the client's administrator to confirm. Record who verified and when. Keep the evidence with the assignment record. A checklist that says "removed" without a verification step is a claim, not a control.
Handle work in progress before the cutover
Identify open tasks, drafts, and scheduled sends that belong to the outgoing assignment. Transfer ownership to the new assistant or back to the client owner, and cancel anything that should not go out. Remove the old assistant from approval chains and automated notifications. A scheduled report that keeps running under an old account can expose data for months.
Protect the client's history
Do not delete the client's files or the record of work performed. Archive them in the agreed location with the date and the reason for the transfer. The outgoing assistant may need to answer a question during a short transition window, but that should happen through a supervised channel with time-limited access, not through a forgotten login.
Review the pattern quarterly
Compare assignments closed with access removed within the target window. Sample a few and check the verification evidence. If removals are late, find out whether the trigger, the client administrator, or the identity team is the bottleneck. The measure is not how fast someone clicks, but whether the access actually ends.