GitLab Offboarding

Offboarding Overview

The offboarding process is facilitated by the People Connect team who collaborates throughout the process with various other stakeholders such as Team Member Relations, IT Operations and Payroll.

If you have any questions around the offboarding process, please be sure to review the Offboarding FAQs handbook page.

Note: Departing team members will receive a comprehensive email prior to their final date of employment with information such as the impact on benefits coverage, final pay, arranging for a laptop wipe and stock administration.

Offboarding Support

For system access questions and laptop wipes related to offboarding, send an email to itops@gitlab.com.

For payroll questions or outstanding expense claims, please reach out to either uspayroll@gitlab.com or nonuspayroll@gitlab.com.

For any other offboarding questions, please reach out to People Connect via people-connect@gitlab.com or directly in the #people-connect Slack channel.

Note: If a termination date changes, please reach out to People Connect via email. The team will update Workday and will alert the Payroll team. The email is used as supporting documentation of the change and is saved in the team members Workday record. If the team member is employed via a PEO, they will also be notified by People Connect.

Voluntary Terminations

Prior to Resignation

1. Team Member: Please reach out to either your Direct Manager prior to submitting your resignation particularly to discuss the handover process and the communication plan regarding your departure.
2. Team Member: Review the documented notice period for your location if applicable and factor in the notice period when submitting your resignation through Workday.
3. Team Member: Compile your Letter of Resignation for uploading into Workday. If you are employed through a PEO or Third-Party Employer, send a copy of your resignation letter to the PEO contact as well.

Resignation

1. Team Member: Following the guidelines in the ‘How to Submit a Resignation’ e-Learning or Job Aid submit your resignation directly in Workday which you may access through Okta.
2. Team Member: If you are employed via a PEO or Third-Party Employer forward a copy of your Letter of Resignation directly to them.
3. Team Member: Within 48 hours of submitting your resignation you can anticipate receiving both your offboarding information email and a request to complete an exit survey along with an invitation to take part in an optional exit interview.
4. Team Member: You should review the Offboarding FAQ handbook page to address any questions you may have. If you have a question that is not on that page, please reach out in #people-connect. Note: You will not see your offboarding issue prior to your departure as this is an issue used to deprovision access and is created once you are done working.
5. Manager: You will receive the resignation for review through your Workday Inbox - ensure that the proposed final date of employment aligns to the documented notice period for the team members location.
6. Manager: In the instance that the resignation details require revision, you may send it back to the team member by clicking Send Back. If you are satisfied with the information, click Approve.
7. Manager: Once the details about the team members departure have been finalized schedule time with the team member to plan the departure announcement. Please reach out to your PBP if you need additional guidance.

Termination

1. Manager: Once the resignation has been approved you will receive a prompt in your Workday Inbox to terminate the team member in the system by following the steps documented in the following job aid alternatively you can do so from within the team members Workday Profile by selecting Actions followed by Job Change and finally Terminate Employee.
   • Note: Submitting the termination in Workday does not immediately terminate access. The offboarding issue, which is opened on the team members termination date, initiates the deprovisioning process for terminated team members.
   • Note: If the team member is currently on a leave of absence, please reach out to leaves@gitlab.com so they can close out the LOA process.
2. Manager: You will be prompted to indicate whether the termination is regrettable or non-regrettable and whether the team member would be eligible for re-hire in future or not i.e. with review unless specifically relating to conduct or job abandonment in which case they would not be eligible:
   • Regrettable: The team members departure has a significant negative impact on the company, its customers, its projects or the team - the team member was a good and consistent performer both in terms of results and behaviours specifically upholding the GitLab values.
   • Non-Regrettable i.e. The team members departure has a minimal impact on the company, its customers, its projects or the team - the team member has not been meeting expectations due to conduct, culture or values misalignment or performance concerns.
3. People Business Partner: You will receive a prompt in your Workday Inbox to review the termination particlars submitted by the Manager if you are satisfied with the details enclosed and aligned with the Manager on the final date of employment click Approve. In the instance that you feel further discussion is required a sync with the Manager and/or Team Member should be arranged and the particulars can be sent back for further review.
4. People Connect: Once the transaction has been fully approved the team will receive a notification of the termination within the Workday Inbox.

Offboarding

1. People Connect: On the Last Day of Work indicated in Workday at the pre-determined time the offboarding issue will be created - this will signal to all system owners that team member access can be revoked. In the instance that the automation does not trigger the offboarding can be initiated manually once this has happened all other back-end offboarding processes facilitated by People Connect can get underway.
2. Deprovisioners (Systems): You will be tagged in the departing team members offboarding issue and required to indicate that the team members access has been revoked kindly note that access to SOX Systems must be attended to with urgency and all other tasks within the offboarding issue must be closed out within five days.

Involuntary Terminations

Note: Involuntary terminations are only facilitated by Team Member Relations (TMR) who will initiate the process both in Workday and in the #offboardings Slack channel.

Involuntary offboarding of any team member is never easy. We’ve created guidelines and information to make this process as humane as we can. Beyond the points outlined below, make sure to refer to our guidelines on underperformance, as well as the offboarding issue.

Involuntary Process

The manager and the team member should have walked through the guidelines on underperformance before reaching this point.

1. Manager: Reach out to the their TMR specialist for assistance.
   • TMR will ask about what the performance issues have been, how they have been attempted to be addressed, and review all manager/team member documentation.
   • Once the review has been completed and the decision has been made to offboard the team member, the manager should review the best timing for the involuntary offboarding call and termination date. We recommend to avoid scheduling a involuntary offboarding call while a team member is scheduled for any sensitive customer meetings or is on-call, per guidance below under Last working day.
   • TMR will partner with the People Connect Team to coordinate the offboarding of the team member.
   • TMR will inform the People Business Partner on the possible upcoming offboarding.
2. TMR: The TMR will initiate the offboarding process by completing the Hold for Involuntary Offboarding Form which can be found in the shortcuts section of the #offboarding channel. The form includes fields for the date, time and location of the offboarding along with room for additional notes if needed and will prompt an alert in the #offboardings channel ensuring that People Connect and all other stakeholders are aware of the team members departure particulars i.e. IT Operations, Payroll and Total Rewards.
   1. The first People Connect Member to respond to the post will will partner with the TMR for the duration of the offboarding process.
3. TMR: The TMR will create a private Slack channel that will include the PBP, Manager, and Leader of the organization to review the offboarding and agreed upon offboarding date.
4. Specialist: If applicable, the TMR will prepare the severance agreement in preparation for the call between the TMR specialist, Manager, and team member. Additional guidelines for the preparation of this agreement can be found below in the Separation and Release of Claims Agreements section. To determine whether or not a severance agreement is applicable, please refer to the Severance Elgibility guidelines accessible by PBPs, and Team Member Relations Specialist.
5. Manager: Once the date and time is confirmed, the manager will schedule time with the team member and send the TMR specialist a private and separate calendar invite with the Zoom details for the meeting with the team member to share the news of the offboarding.
6. Payroll: If the team member is employed by a PEO/entity with statutory leave requirements, review if any time off needs to be paid on the last paycheck by looking in Workday in the Time Off section.
7. Payroll: If the team member has a contract with a co-employer, the payroll lead will forward an email to the contact at the co-employer with the information surrounding the departing team members statutory leave etc.
8. People Connect: The People Connect member will confirm and coordinate the date and time of the offboarding and who will be available to assist with the offboarding. At this stage, the name of the departing team member is not yet shared. To share this information, the TMR will complete the Offboarding Form. Once submitted a summary of the response will be posted to the #offboarding Slack channel.
9. TMR/Manager: Discuss best mode of communicating the bad news to the team member. This discussion can happen via a private chat-channel, but it is best to be done via video.
10. TMR/Manager: Decide who will handle which part of the conversation, and if desired, practice it.
    • If needed the TMR will provide the manager with a script for the offboarding meeting.
11. TMR/Manager: If the team member who is being terminated is a people manager, a communication plan for the team regarding the departure should be in place before the offboarding proceeds. The communication plan should include: identification of an interim leader, (ideally) a scheduled meeting with the interim leader for the direct reports, a scheduled team call to announce the current manager’s departure and the interim leadership, and finally an announcement in the #team-member-updates Slack channel to share with the wider team.
    • Important:
      • Informing the team and answering questions should be the top priority.
      • No announcement should be made in the #team-member-updates Slack channel until the team call has been completed.
      • In most cases, a team call can occur the same day of the offboarding. If necessary, the offboarding can be announced in the #team-member-updates Slack channel the following day.
12. TMR/Manager: Decide what offboarding actions need to be taken before the call (e.g. revoke admin permissions), or during the call (e.g. revoke Slack and Gmail access), and which ones can wait until later. You can reference the offboarding issue template for the full list of actions. This conversation should take place in the private Slack channel with PBP, Manager and Leader.
13. TMR: If the team member is a risk to the production environment, the TMR should privately reach out to the Infrastructure Managers to determine who will be available to assist with the offboarding. Once an infrastructure team member has been identified, they should be added to the private calendar invite sent to People Connect, Security, and Payroll to hold the time for the team member offboarding. Once the offboarding conversation starts the TMR will privately Slack the infrastructure contact the name of the team member to start the offboarding process.

Facilitating the Call

1. Manager: Deliver the bad news up-front, do not beat around the bush and prolong the inevitable pain for everyone involved. The Manager will make it clear that the decision is final, but will also explain what led to this decision and will point to the process that was followed to reach this decision. A sample leading sentence can be “Thanks for joining the call, [team member name]. Unfortunately, the reason I wanted to speak with you is because we have decided that we have to let you go and end your employment / contract with GitLab because of xyz.”
2. TMR: As soon as the conversation begins, the TMR will complete the offboarding form which will post to #offboardings Slack channel with the name of the team member to immediately start the offboarding process.
3. People Connect: The assigned People Connect member will send out the Offboarding Informational Email according to the appropriate template. Current templates include USA,Canada andOther countries
4. Manager: Hand the call over to the TMR to continue.
5. TMR: The TMR will also make it clear that the decision is final, but also will genuinely listen to the team member’s side of the story since there may be useful lessons in what they say for the rest of the team e.g. regarding hiring and vetting practices.
6. TMR: Make sure to communicate the practical points from the offboarding memo outlined below.
7. TMR: Once the conversation is complete, the TMR will stage the severance document in DocuSign for review and signatures.

Critical Points During Offboarding Call

All Team Members

1. Final Pay: “Your final check (or invoice period) is for the pay period of X and includes X days of pay”.
2. Company Property: “Please return all property as explained in the handbook, also please delete GitLab’s email connection from your phone”.
3. Business Expenses: “Please create your final expense report to Navan Expense (for employees), OR, please file any outstanding expenses with your final invoice (for contractors), so these can be reimbursed to you in a timely manner”.
4. Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure: “We know you are a professional, please keep in mind the agreement you signed when you were hired”.
5. Personal Particulars: If you would like GitLab to share your personal email with the rest of the company, please send an email to People Ops or a farewell message that can be forwarded on your behalf.

US Team Members

1. COBRA: “Your benefits will cease on last day of the month you are eligible for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (“COBRA”), the carrier (Lumity) has been notified and the carrier will send out the paperwork to your home address on file”.
2. PPACA: “You may also be eligible under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”) for subsidized health care options via the marketplace. If you are interested it is important that you sign up with the market place well before the 15th of the month to have coverage for the following month”.
3. HIPAA: " Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), if you need a certificate of credible coverage please download it from your current carrier’s online portal or request it from People Ops”.
4. Unemployment Insurance: “It is up to your state’s labor agency (in CA: EDD) to decide if you are eligible for unemployment insurance”.
5. Keep GitLab Informed: “If you move I want to be sure your W-2 gets to you at the end of the year. You may also contact X at GitLab (provide phone number and email address) with any other questions that you may have” (consider inviting them to contact you at anytime for any reason).

Initiating an Involuntary Termination in Workday

1. TMR: Terminate the team member in the system by following the steps documented in the following job aid alternatively you can do so from within the team members Workday Profile by selecting Actions followed by Job Change and finally Terminate Employee.
2. TMR: You will be prompted to indicate whether the termination is regrettable or non-regrettable and whether the team member would be eligible for re-hire in future or not i.e. with review unless specifically relating to conduct or job abandonment in which case they would not be eligible.
3. People Business Partner: You will receive a prompt in your Workday Inbox to review the termination particlars submitted by the Manager if you are satisfied with the the details enclosed and aligned with the Manager on the final date of employment click Approve. In the instance that you feel further discussion is required a sync with the Manager and TMR in question should be arranged and the particulars can be sent back for further review.
4. People Connect: Once the transaction has been fully approved the team will receive a notification of the termination within your Workday Inbox.

Last Working Day

After the involuntary offboarding call has taken place and the last working day has been determined, team members will have no access to GitLab systems and may not be required to do any work on GitLab’s behalf.

If they are on “Garden Leave” they will still be active on payroll through the termination date. When determining the timing of the involuntary offboarding call and termination date it is important to consider any effect this might have on ongoing tasks and responsibilities of the team member.

As a manager, in collaboration with the Team Member Relations Specialist (TMR) and/or the People Business Partner (PBP), we recommend to avoid scheduling the involuntary offboarding call while a team member is scheduled for any sensitive customer meetings or is on-call. If this is unavoidable, the manager is responsible for ensuring a transition/remediation plan.

People Engineering automations will generate the offboarding issue at the end of the team member’s last working day, as per notification from the Team Member Relations Specialist (TMR) and the People Business Partner (PBP). Once the Last Working Day or Garden leave expires the team member will be officially offboarded from GitLab. Prior to the offboarding issue and the overall process for the term listed below.

Last Working Day for US Team Members

1. TMR: TMR will have a legal/CPO review of the planned offboarding.
2. TMR: TMR will inform payroll, compensation and benefits, security and the stock administration of the date the team member will have access suspended and the official offboarding date prior to the start of the official offboarding issue. The TMR can either inform the group via the confidential #offboardings channel 1-2 days prior to the scheduled exit or via a zoom call.
3. TMR: TMR will work with People Connect to ensure the offboarding issue has the correct dates and that all stakeholders in Payroll, Compensation and Benefits (Total Rewards), Security and Stock Administration have been communicated to and understand the correct offboarding date.

Sample Offboarding Memo

If appropriate (to be determined by conversation with the manager, the Group Executive, and People Ops), use the following offboarding memo, which is provided here as an openly viewable Google Doc, but of course needs to be personalized and tailored to each individual’s situation. As written, it is applicable to US-based employees only.

Separation and Release of Claims Agreements

Separation and Release of Claims Agreements do not apply for all offboardings. To review in which cases they do/do not apply, please reference the Severance Eligibility document accessible by People Connect Team and PBPs. In the case that a severance agreement is applicable, the steps below should be followed:

Severance Process for US-based Team Members

1. TMR: The TMR Partner/Specialist assigned to the particular offboarding case at hand should select the appropriate severance template. Options include: Non-California over 40, California over 40, Non-California under 40, California under 40.
2. TMR: The TMR Partner/Specialist should make a copy of the template and save it in the Copies of Individual Severance Agreements folder.
3. TMR: The TMR Partner/Specialist should fill out the document.
4. TMR: The TMR Partner/Specialist will ping the stock team in the stock option section of the document.
5. TMR: The TMR Partner/Specialist will share with the PBP and Legal for final review/approval.
6. TMR: The TMR Partner/Specialist will stage the document in DocuSign for signatures. Please note that depending on the template used, team members have a limited amount of time to sign the Separation and Release of Claims Agreement.
   • When staging the document for signatures, please note:
     • Remember to send the document to the team member’s personal email address
     • Select the assign signature order option in DocuSign to ensure the team member signs the document first
     • All US (Inc.) severance agreements should be signed by Pattie Egan, VP of People Operations. If Pattie is unavailable then Wendy Nice Barnes, CPO will be responsible for signing.
     • US (Federal LLC.) severance agreements need to be signed by an appropriate team member within the Federal Entity.
7. TMR: When the signed document is received, the TMR should upload it to the team member’s Workday Profile in the documents tab.
8. TMR: As a final step, the TMR specialist will email the appropriate uspayroll@gitlab or nonuspayroll@gitlab and total rewards that the final severance agreement has been uploaded to the team members Workday Profile in the documents tab.

Important Notes:

• Separation pay is not paid until the ex-team member signs the document and the revocation period has passed.
• We treat team members equally and therefore do not take tenure into consideration when determining separation pay unless legally required. We know that other companies sometimes gives higher separation pay to longer tenure. We think that a short tenure can be harder to explain to a next employer and with a shorter tenure you might have less stock option upside, maybe you have not even reached your vesting cliff.
• Make sure you understand the rules for over 40.
• You must use language in your exit meeting that is in no way forceful of the ex-team member to sign the agreement. Use phrasing such as “if you choose to sign”; “you have a right to have legal council review this document before you sign”, etc.

Team Member Leave during an Investigation

For team members who will be placed on leave during an investigation please follow the process below:

1. TMR: Communicates with Legal, Aligned PBP regarding the decision to place a team member on leave and disable accounts during an investigation.
2. TMR: TMR completes the Suspension bot in the #offboarding Slack channel to request IT and People Ops support for disabling a team members accounts. This can be found by selecting the lightning bolt or shortcut button in Slack in the #offboarding channel. Once you complete the form, a message will post to the Slack channel, in this message thread you will find a message with a link to another form. This form is only needed/used when a team member is returning from leave.
3. TMR: TMR coordinates with IT and the People Connect team in the same manner as an involuntary term to be able to disable accounts when a team member is informed of the decision.
4. TMR: TMR schedules a call with the teammember and manager to inform them of the decision to place the team member on leave while an investigation occurs.
5. TMR: TMR informs the manager and PBP when the conversation is completed and accounts are disabled. During this period managers will not have access to the team members accounts.
6. TMR: TMR notifies IT that an Out Of Office message needs to be set on the account and include the message that the team member is OOO and please reach out to their manager.
7. TMR: TMR send the team member to their personal email the “Team member Suspension letter” via DocuSign. The TMR will upload this document to the team members Workday Profile in documents tab.
8. TMR: TMR once the investigation is completed the TMR will inform the aligned PBP and manager of the final decision. If the team member is to be returned to work the TMR will reach out and schedule time to meet with the team member.
9. TMR: If the team member is returning to work the TMR complete the suspension bot (the form will be located in the orginal Slack thread) to notify IT and People Connect that the team member will be returning from leave and the date that accounts should be enabled.

Offboarding Compliance

The People Connect member in the relevant rotation will complete a weekly audit of all offboarding issues opened within that specific week and check that all tasks have been completed by all Team Member and/or Departments. In the event that tasks are still outstanding, the People Connect member will ping the relevant Departments within the offboarding issue to call for tasks to be completed.

Once all tasks have been completed, the People Connect Member will close the offboarding issue and mark as completed in the offboarding tracker.

All offboarding tasks by all Departments need to be completed within 5 days of the offboarding date. For systems that are more critical and time sensitive, these will be completed within the first 24 hours (example 1Password, Slack) by the relevant Departments. Information about application & system deprovisioners can be found on the Tech Stack Applications handbook page.

To ensure a successful completion of the offboarding issue, it is important that all tasks are checked off, whether the system/tool is applicable to the offboarding team member or not. Checking the box indicates one of the following:

• I have revoked team member access to this particular system/tool
• I have checked and this team member was not given access to this particular the system/tool.

GitLab Alumni Program

Voluntary exits that are eligible to be rehired and have been with GitLab longer than 6 months will be added to the Slack channel #gitlab-alumni. The offboarding details provided by the Manager in Workday is how eligibility is determined and later shared with IT.

Reasons that someone would not be permitted to join would be:

1. Due to involuntary offboarding for extreme behavior or a violation of our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.
2. Underperformance or other causes for involuntary offboarding are not a reason to exclude someone from the alumni program.
3. Team members who are not eligible for rehire.

The purpose of this channel is to network and socialize with team members.

Joining the channel is voluntary and subject to GitLab’s Code of Conduct.

GitLab, the company, monitors the channel and can remove people from it at their sole discretion. The GitLab Code of Business Conduct and Ethics is enforced in the channel.

Process for Team Members Outside of the US

To be documented

Communicating Departures

Our goals in communicating offboardings are transparency, and to provide an opportunity for team members to say goodbye. We understand that different individuals are comfortable with different levels of communication and that each offboarding situation has different situations and nuances. For this reason and out of respect for individuals, we have a couple of key guiding principles for communicating offboarding:

1. We ask that all offboardings are announced in the #team-member-updates Slack channel for transparency and awareness. While we encourage all offboardings to be posted in #team-member-updates, we recognize there may be select situations that we should consider a different approach for. If a team member or their manager does not want to post in #team-member-updates, please discuss with your People Business Partner or Team Member Relations.
2. Team members and managers have the discretion to determine who shares the news of the team member’s offboarding (I.E. team member or manager). Regardless of who shares, it is required that team members review offboarding messaging with their managers prior to sharing.

Depending on the team members’ role, timing of communication may vary (e.g. direct team, key stakeholders, etc.), and managers have discretion to determine who should be informed most immediately. The typical order followed for communicating departures is:

1. Inform Direct Team

The “direct team” is typically the team member’s peers within their immediate team (I.E. reporting to the same manager and/or in the same functional group, etc.) and is typically a relatively small group of people.

In most cases, team members communicate their departures to their direct team, though messaging should be cross-checked with their manager for consistency.

2. Inform Key Stakeholders

Key stakeholder communication can be done through 1:1 notifications, and/or by posting the update in team-specific channels for general awareness. Key stakeholders are individuals that departing team members work very closely with (typically in their day-to-day work) that will feel the impact of the team member’s departure in their work. Managers of key stakeholders should also be looped into communication to ensure awareness.

It is essential that key stakeholders are looped in to offboardings to:

1. Communicate go forward plans
2. Ensure business continuity and transparency

Departures should be communicated with stakeholders as soon as possible, with a maximum timeframe of 2 business days after the team member’s departure.

Where possible and appropriate, we also encourage managers to work with departing team members to align on transitions plans to transition as much of the departing team members’ work as possible before their departure.

In most cases, managers communicate team member departures to key stakeholders.

3. Announce In #team-member-updates

As explained briefly in the offboarding issue, GitLab is not always able to provide full context on why people are leaving when they do.

However as mentioned in the procedures, for voluntary offboarding, the team member can work with their manager on messaging to share a company-wide message about their departure.

Once the news has been shared with the team member’s team and other stakeholders, and messaging is agreed upon between the departing team members and their manager, the departure message should be shared in the #team-member-updates Slack channel. Managers and team members can optionally leverage this template as a guide on how to communicate a team member’s upcoming departure:

1

I want to share that [team member’s name] ([group] [role]) will be leaving GitLab, and [his/her/their] last day is (date of their last day). (Context to add about the team member’s time at GitLab - examples: their favorite contribution to the handbook or they can use the update to express gratitude towards teams and individuals that have made their experience at GitLab positive.) I would like to take this opportunity to thank (team member's name) for their contributions and wish them all the best for the future. If you have questions about tasks or projects that need to be picked up, please let me know. If you have concerns, please bring them up with your manager. To keep in touch with (team member's name) he/she/they can be reached at (contact info - e.g. LinkedIn, email, etc.)

There will be situations in which team members prefer to share their offboarding message, and situations in which managers prefer to do so. Either is ok, so long as team member and manager have reviewed the messaging together prior to posting.

If someone is let go involuntarily, this generally cannot be shared since it affects the individual’s privacy and job performance is intentionally kept between an individual and their manager.

If you are not close to an employee’s offboarding, it may seem unnecessarily swift. Please remember that these decisions are never made without following the above process to come to a positive resolution first - we need to protect the interests of the individual as well as the company, and offboarding is a last resort. According to our values negative feedback is 1-1 between you and your manager and we are limited in what we can share about private employee issues. Please discuss any concerns you have about another employee’s offboarding with your manager or your People Business Partner.

Given the expectations and responsibility that come with a VP and above position, when there is an involuntary offboarding for one of these positions, additional context for the personnel change can be provided to the organization.

Silence is unpleasant. It’s unpleasant because we are human, which means that we are generally curious and genuinely interested in the well-being of our team members.

Is it more unpleasant in a remote setting? Probably not.

When people are all in the same office building, they can “kinda sorta” know what may be coming because of the grapevine, the water cooler, and so on. When the news hits it might be less of a shock - only because of unprofessional behavior in the first place.

But at larger companies with multiple office buildings, departures will tend to come as more of a surprise and with less context (at least to the people in other buildings).

4. Inform The Department

Managers should consider cross-posting the message in #team-member-updates to inform the wider Department of the departing team member.

What Do We Share?

We strive to maintain personal information regarding all team members private, this includes information regarding a team members voluntary or involuntary departure from GitLab. However, a manager with the consent and approval of the departing team member can share more details with the GitLab team regarding the decision to leave GitLab.

For a voluntary departure a team member may have chosen to leave for many different reasons, career development, promotion, a new role or career path, dislike remote work, etc. For example, a team member may tell their manager that they really miss being in an office environment and remote work is not suitable for their personality. Based on that decision they have taken another opportunity that allows them to go to an office.

If the departing team member gives their manager permission to share that information then the manager will share while making the departure announcement on the team call. We want all GitLab team-members to be engaged, happy and fulfilled in their work and if remote work, the requirements of the job or the role it self are not fulfilling we wish our team members the best of luck in their next endeavor.

Regarding involuntary offboarding, certain information can also be shared with the GitLab team regarding the departure. Some team members do not thrive or enjoy the work that they were hired to do. For example after starting at GitLab a team member quickly learns they have no desire or interest to learn Git or work with Git. This doesn’t make them a bad person, it just means they don’t have the interest for the role and based on that the decision was made to exit the company. Again, we want all team members to enjoy and thrive in their work and that may or may not be at GitLab.

The departing team member may work with their manager to author a goodbye message for voluntary offboarding:

1. Work with your manager on the message that your manager will share in #team-member-updates on Slack.
2. Send it to your manager for approval. If, as a manager, you are in doubt about the message - please reach out to your manager or aligned People Business Partner for additional review.
3. Managers are encouraged to use the suggested template (above link) and have the space to add more color wherever they see fit.

In some instances there will be no further clarification on why a team member has departed, if there are concerns you can address those with your manager. Different levels of transparency will exist based on maintaining respectful treatment for all departures. Having team members leave may be a learning opportunity for some, but should not be a point of gossip for anyone. Managers will need to balance the opportunity for learning with the expectation of privacy and consult their People Business Partner should they have questions.

Transparency is one of our values. In the case of offboarding, transparency could be specific (e.g. calling out a team member’s issues), while inviting more questions and gossip. We opt to share the feedback only with peers and direct reports as needed, since we balance transparency with our value of collaboration and constructive guidance shared 1-1.

Turnover Data

GitLab’s turnover data is only viewable internally.

Managing the Offboarding Tasks

Offboarding Issue

To track all tool deprovisioning, please open an offboarding issue following the offboarding standards.

Returning Property to GitLab

As part of offboarding, any GitLab property valued above 1,000 USD needs to be returned to GitLab.

For laptops, please refer to the Laptop Buy Back Policy which states that team-members have the option to buy back their existing laptops either when it gets refreshed for a new one, or when the team member is offboarding. If the team member has completed 1 calendar year or more at GitLab at the time of laptop refresh or offboarding, they can opt to keep their laptop at no cost. If the team member hasn’t completed 1 calendar year at GitLab at that time, they have the option to purchase their laptop for current market value.

To return your laptop to GitLab, please contact itops@gitlab.com immediately upon offboarding.

Navan Expense

This section of the Accounting Department.

To remove someone from Navan Expense Log in to Navan Expense and go to “Settings” in the left sidebar. Select the right policy based upon the entity that employs the team member. Select “People” in the left menu. Select the individual’s name and click “Remove”. If the person has a Corporate Credit Card assigned to them, please notify Accounts Payable before un-assigning it.

Retrospective for Managers

For involuntary offboardings it is optional to do a retrospective on the hiring, onboarding and coaching/communication of the departing team member. As a manager, you can use this template for a retrospective. Please share the filled out template with your manager as well as the People Business Partner for your group.

Within the Engineering division this is a required process because it causes hiring managers to reflect on what led to the ultimate decision of parting ways with the team member, and how that might be prevented during future hiring processes.

Evaluation Framework

1. How could this outcome have been avoided?
2. Were there early signs that were missed?
3. In retrospect, what questions should have been asked to bring awareness and ownership to performance issues e.g. “How would you compare yourself relative to your peers”? - people are surprisingly honest here.

Unemployment Claims

Unemployment Claims in the US

In the United States, Unemployment Insurance provides benefits to GitLab team members who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. The purpose is to provide temporary financial assistance to employees who meet certain requirements.

Unemployment insurance is administered at a state level and in compliance with Federal Law. Each state establishes its own eligibility criteria and regulations surrounding Unemployment Insurance with respect to the amount allocated, duration and eligibility for Unemployment Insurance.

Eligibility criteria include meeting the state specified requirements in terms of both earnings and time worked during the base period. In some instances the state may require additional supporting information particularly more extensive wage related details surrounding a claim.

Unemployment Insurance is funded through employer contributions and most states will have State Unemployment Taxes that apply however many employers typically pay the State Unemployment Taxes too.

Reporting a False Unemployment Claim

If you are a full-time team member and you are contacted by your state’s Unemployment Commission to discuss your request for Unemployment Benefits, you may be a victim of Unemployment Claim Fraud.

Before giving out any information to the caller, please confirm that you are speaking with an agency employee. If you confirm with your state’s Unemployment Commission that there is a fraudulent claim, please report it via email to people-connect@gitlab.com.

Additionally here is a link to the U.S Department of Labor Contact Particulars to report Unemployment Insurance Fraud.

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