The knowledge walks out with them
In a small Hong Kong company the person who resigns is often the only one who knows how something is actually done. The bookkeeper who knows which supplier invoices are always wrong. The operations lead who knows a client's unwritten preferences. When that person gives notice, the work they do does not have a second owner waiting.
Notice periods in Hong Kong are commonly one month, set by the employment contract. Check the contract and the Employment Ordinance for the period that applies, then treat the time you have as four weeks of handover.
Each week has a different job. The first is for finding out what exists. The last is for proving the successor can run it. Mixing the two is how the last day arrives with a half-written folder and a briefing nobody can replay.
Week 1 — inventory, not documents
Do not start by asking the leaver to write everything down. Start by listing what they actually do. Sit with them and write four lists:
- Every recurring task they handle, grouped by daily, weekly, monthly and annual. Annual items disappear first — a licence renewal, a year-end stock count, a client's January price review.
- Every system login they use, and who else already has it. A login that only they hold is a risk before they have left.
- Every external contact who knows them by name — suppliers, customers, the bank, the accountant, a government officer they have been dealing with.
- Every open matter with a deadline: a quote promised, a complaint unfinished, a shipment waiting on a document.
These lists are the handover. Documents come later, and only for work that will continue. A trading company with a dozen staff will often find that half of what the leaver does is undocumented habit, which is why the inventory comes from conversation, not from the shared drive.
Week 2 — destinations, then reverse shadowing
Take each item and decide where it goes: who takes it, what is dropped, and what is outsourced. Not everything the leaver did needs a successor. Some tasks existed because that person invented them; some can wait; some belong with a bookkeeper or a service provider rather than the next desk.
Then reverse the usual shadowing. The successor does the task while the leaver watches. Talking through a job produces a confident briefing and a successor who still cannot do it. Doing the task, with the leaver correcting the awkward cases in the moment, produces someone who has already hit the problems.
A week of this will not cover every annual task. It should cover the work that lands in the next month.
Week 3 — write, introduce, transfer
Three things happen this week, and none of them is finishing the training in conversation.
The leaver writes a one-page procedure for the top five tasks only. Not a manual, and not a procedure for everything on the inventory. Purpose, who does it, what starts it, the steps, what "done" looks like, and who to ask when the case does not fit: that is enough to run the work next Tuesday. If a task will not fit on one page, it is two tasks, or it is not ready to hand over.
The same week, introduce the successor to the key external contacts by email or WhatsApp, while the leaver is still in the conversation. A short message that says who now owns the account, and that the leaver is still around this week for questions, is what transfers the relationship.
Then move shared drives, mailboxes, WhatsApp groups and vendor portals off the leaver's personal identity and onto a company-owned one. If customers have been writing to a personal email or a personal WhatsApp number, that is part of the handover, not a footnote.
Week 4 — the successor runs it
The leaver is on call only. The successor runs every recurring task, answers the contacts, and owns the open matters. The leaver is available for a specific question — they are not helping out by doing the work again.
The final day is administration. Equipment comes back. Access is revoked the same day, including anything opened in week three and anything that lived on a personal phone. Set a forwarding rule on the mailbox. Settle final pay as the contract requires.
What owners get wrong
The last two weeks become a farewell. Lunches, a card, a lighter diary. The successor is still watching, and the inventory has not been given a destination.
The leaver trains by talking. A walkthrough of how they do the month-end is not a handover. The successor has to produce the month-end, once, with the leaver in the room.
A counter-offer is made and accepted, and everyone relaxes. The same person is still the only one who knows the work. The resignation has been postponed; the fragility has not.
Customers have been calling a personal mobile for years, and nobody treats that number as company property. When it leaves, the relationship leaves with it.
The checklist is most useful before anyone resigns. Keep a living list of recurring tasks, logins, named contacts and open deadlines for each role, and review it while people are still staying. A business that can only be handed over under notice is fragile.