Company phone onboarding and offboarding checklist
Two lists. One for the person starting Monday, one for the person who left in March and whose line is still billing. Neither needs an IT department to run.
Short answer. Onboarding: order early, enrol before shipping, assign the line to a named person, hand over with the policy, record the serial. Offboarding: recover or wipe the device, decide what happens to the number, remove access, and stop the billing the same week.
The onboarding checklist
- Order at offer acceptance, not on day one. Shipping is the only part of this you cannot compress.
- Enrol before it ships. A device that arrives already enrolled and set up removes the first-day scramble entirely.
- Assign the line to a named employee in whatever system holds your inventory. Unassigned lines are what audits find later.
- Choose the plan for the role, not the default. Field crews, travellers and desk staff are three different plans.
- Hand over with the policy and capture the signature and serial number at the same moment.
- Record the IMEI. The FCC recommends noting the make, model, serial and IMEI precisely because you will need it if the device is ever lost or stolen.
The offboarding checklist
- Recover the device on the last day, or agree a return method in writing before it.
- Wipe and unenrol. Remote wipe if the device is not coming back, and confirm the wipe completed rather than assuming it did.
- Decide the number's fate. Reassign, park or release — a customer-facing number is a business asset, not a personal one.
- Remove account access tied to the device, including any carrier account permissions the person held.
- Stop the billing. Suspend or cancel the line the same week, and check the next invoice to confirm it happened.
- Update the inventory so the spare handset is findable next time, instead of becoming a drawer device.
Which step is missed most often?
The last two. Access removal gets done because it feels like security; stopping the billing gets forgotten because it feels like admin. That is why zero-use lines are the first check in a bill audit — they are almost always leavers.
How do we make this survive a busy month?
Attach both lists to events you cannot forget: the signed offer and the resignation letter. If the phone steps live inside the HR checklist rather than beside it, they happen even in the weeks when nobody has time.
The alternative is to hand the trigger to someone whose job it is. With MobileDesk, HR tells your Mobile Success Manager and the rest happens — line provisioned, device assigned, access closed out, without a ticket from you. That is step three of how it works.
FAQs
How early should we order a phone for a new hire?
At offer acceptance. Everything else in the list takes minutes; shipping does not.
Can we reassign a departing employee's number?
Usually, and you should decide deliberately for customer-facing roles. Ask your carrier about the reassignment window before releasing anything.
What if the leaver will not return the device?
Wipe it remotely, suspend the line, and treat recovery as an HR matter. Your policy should already say this — see what to include in the policy.
Do we need an MDM to do any of this?
It makes enrolment and remote wipe far easier. It does not order the device, assign the line or stop the billing.
