See How to Seamlessly Manage Employee Offboarding and Keep Access Secure|Nov 21, 2025
Employee layoffs have become prevalent in the last few months. When there are hundreds or thousands of layoffs at once, and employees are leaving the company, the effect reaches beyond HR, payroll and benefits. One risk that often flies under the radar when layoffs are taking place is workforce identity and access governance. When employees are offboarding, the systems that govern their access, permissions and accounts need to be updated actively and in a timely manner. If they don’t, organizations may face serious security exposures and compliance gaps.
When a company conducts large-scale layoffs, it sets off a chain reaction that touches many systems: HR records, IT directories, access controls, applications, devices, and more. If any of these pieces lag behind, even for a day, you have a potential window where a former employee still has access rights they shouldn’t.
Recent data shows just how big this issue has become. According to Economic Times, more than 172,000 jobs were eliminated in a single month in 2025 across major. And companies have announced over 600,000 job cuts so far this year, the highest total since the pandemic.
When employees leave, the question becomes whether their access leaves with them instantly and reliably. That’s where workforce identity and access governance becomes critical.
When there are just a few exits, HR and IT may follow manual processes. HR sends a termination notification to IT, IT revokes access for each system, an individual tracks these payments and tasks. This works in a normal environment, but when there are hundreds or thousands of offboarding individuals at once, this level of detail becomes unmanageable without some level of automation.
Typical pain points include:
Each missed update increases risk. The labor market and economic environment have hastened employee layoffs and transitions similar to what occurred in 2020 with the pandemic. Employees leaving can create scenarios for unauthorized access, breaches or even insider threats. The speed of change in today’s workforce demands more than manual and tracked processes, it requires automated identity governance.
Workforce identity and access governance can pertain to how an organization is managing, monitoring and governing who has access to what, especially in a larger and dynamic work environment where people move into new roles, departments, companies/leaving.
Good governance means that when an employee role has been modified or they are offboarding, the access rights or access or accounts are modified accurately, consistently and automatically if possible.
When systems are siloed, HR, IT and operations operate separately. But once you allow HR systems to talk to each other – for example, connecting Paylocity with IT systems like Entra ID or Active Directory – you now have a connected system. This connected means things change much faster, with far fewer errors, and your workforce management solutions are managing the full lifecycle of the employee from hire to retire.
Integration is essentially the enabler of robust identity governance. When HR updates the employee status in Paylocity, the integration can trigger the right workflows in IT: deactivate accounts, revoke licenses, retrieve devices, and update staff access.
Here’s an example of how it works:
That’s the kind of solution that moves you into real identity governance automation vs manual steps that are slow and prone to error. When you have the right workforce management solution and systems, HR and IT cannot just work together but become part of the same end-to-end process.
Organizations utilize a variety of systems to manage their workforce and identity. Here are some of the top platforms and their function in this ecosystem:
When you embrace HR system integration with workforce management solutions, and overlay in program identity governance automation, you are increasingly developing a connected system that services not just employees entering and onboarding, but everything in between, and ultimately complete exiting.
Connecting your systems does not just alleviate problems, it brings value as well.
In today’s environment, where layoffs can strike at scale and speed, having strong workforce management solutions with integration and automation is more than nice to have, it’s essential.
Custom scripts or point-to-point connections might work for a few systems, but they don’t scale when you’re dealing with large layoffs or global operations.
Service-based integration platforms are built for this reality. They use connectors and workflows designed to grow as you grow. Instead of building each connection from scratch, you deploy pre-built integrations, configure workflows, and launch faster. Updates are easier, governance stronger, and the solution is ready for whatever comes next.
RoboMQ’s Hire2Retire solution connects HR platforms like Paylocity, Workday, and ADP with IT directories like Entra ID, Active Directory, and Okta.
Advantages include:
Hire2Retire provides workforce identity and access governance for every lifecycle stage, including onboarding, role changes, and offboarding. Reduce risk, build visibility and allow your teams to focus on what they love, rather than manually completing tasks.
Mass layoffs are a major business fact. But they don’t need to be treated as a security crisis. With the focus of workforce identity and access governance, the integration of HR and IT systems, and robust end-to-end automation, organizations can protect their people, process, and data.
You’re able to transition from the risk-filled experience of workforce management to a safe, seamless, and compliant process for all with relevant workforce management solutions. If your organization is ready to move from manual chaos to control through automation, check out Hire2Retire and see what you can do to create a connected workforce for any change ahead.
You can face many risks when large numbers of employees are leaving and systems are not in sync, including unauthorized access, data leaks, compliance violations, and exposing your organization to insider threat scenarios.
When you have the foundation of HR updates going directly to IT systems your access is revoked or granted in real time. When direct integration is involved, you don’t have gaps in the process, and the access changes are accurate every time without the need for manual labor errors.
Employee offboarding automation is the process where an employee’s roles and responsibilities are automatically designed to trigger workflows that disable the employee’s user accounts, revoke system licenses, retrieve devices, and update access to your organizations tools and data without human action.
The solution updates accounts that might not be used, assign permissions, reflects new job roles, and provide access based on those new responsibilities.
You can explore Hire2Retire pricing or find time for a demo if either your organization qualifies or the pricing make sense.
