written by An employee’s resignation is not simply about closing an email account. It triggers a strict legal process, with specific deadlines, mandatory documents, and REGES Online reporting requirements that cannot be delayed.
A single error in the final settlement documents or in managing the termination of an employment contract can result in fines from the Labour Inspectorate (ITM) or costly employment disputes. That is why an employee resignation procedure should not be overlooked. It is a process that must be handled accurately, regardless of the company’s size.
The Legal Steps in Any Employee Resignation Procedure: The Notice Period
The first step after receiving an employee’s resignation is calculating and managing the notice period. According to the Romanian Labour Code (Article 81), employees are required to observe a notice period established by their individual or collective employment agreement, but not exceeding:
- 20 working days for non-management positions;
- 45 working days for management positions.
One important aspect: the employer may waive the notice period and accept the resignation immediately. However, the employee cannot unilaterally waive this obligation. If they leave without observing the notice period, the employer may seek compensation for damages.
During the notice period, the employment contract remains active. The employee retains their full rights and obligations, while the employer must continue to ensure accurate reporting.
The Risks of Manual Personnel Administration
When HR departments operate under the pressure of a high volume of manual tasks, the offboarding process can lose its accuracy and consistency. Managing personnel files, Excel spreadsheets, and statutory reports simultaneously inevitably increases the risk of procedural errors. In personnel administration, however, a simple omission or a one-day delay is not an insignificant process issue, but a vulnerability that can directly expose the company to risk.
The most common risks an organization may face as a result of rigid or manual administration include:
1. Financial penalties and fines from the Labour Inspectorate (ITM)
Labour legislation imposes strict deadlines for recording and reporting any change to or termination of an individual employment contract.
Missing the REGES Online reporting deadline: late submission of the employment termination decision may result in administrative fines imposed by the Territorial Labour Inspectorate (ITM).
Failure to issue final settlement documents on time: refusing or delaying the issuance of an employment seniority certificate, REGES Online extract, or termination decision may also constitute a violation and result in substantial fines.
2. Employment disputes and unexpected legal costs
Any procedural error made by the employer during the resignation process can become a strong argument for a former employee in court.
Errors in drafting the termination decision: omitting the correct legal grounds or incorrectly referencing an article of the Labour Code may lead to the decision being challenged and annulled in court.
Incorrect calculation of financial entitlements: failing to correctly pay compensation for unused annual leave or incorrectly calculating the final payment frequently leads to disputes. If the company loses the case, it may not only have to pay the outstanding amounts, but also penalty interest, damages, and legal costs.
3. Operational bottlenecks and damage to the employer brand
Repetitive manual work consumes an unnecessary amount of HR specialists’ time. Instead of focusing on employee retention, engagement, or HR strategies, the team remains stuck in administrative tasks, trying to fix errors after the fact.
Outsourcing and Digitalization: Your Protection Against Risk
To eliminate these risks, medium-sized and large companies are increasingly restructuring the way they manage personnel administration.
By outsourcing personnel administration services to a trusted partner or digitalizing workflows through a dedicated HR platform, the process becomes standardized and significantly more controlled.
Legislative deadlines can be monitored by experienced specialists, system alerts can help prevent missed REGES Online deadlines, and final settlement documents can be generated accurately and in line with current legal requirements from the outset.
An HR department overloaded with manual tasks can easily miss termination deadlines, forget to update REGES Online on time, or issue incomplete documents. Each of these omissions represents a real risk: ITM fines, legal disputes, and additional legal costs.
Outsourcing or digitalizing personnel administration acts as a safeguard against these risks. When procedures are standardized and monitored by specialists, deadlines are not overlooked and documents are accurate from the start.
Final Settlement and Mandatory Documents: What Must You Provide to the Employee?
Once the notice period has ended and the termination date has been established, the employer is legally required to issue a complete set of documents. Missing any of these documents can result in penalties or subsequent disputes.
The mandatory documents at the time of final settlement include:
- Termination decision for the individual employment contract – issued by the employer, with the explicit legal basis (Article 81 of the Labour Code – resignation);
- Employment seniority certificate – confirming the period worked and the position held;
- Final settlement statement – including the settlement of all financial entitlements: salary for the days worked, payment for unused annual leave (calculated according to Article 146 of the Labour Code), and any other contractual entitlements;
- REGES Online extract – proof that the termination of the employment contract has been correctly registered in the electronic employee register.
All these documents must be issued on the employment termination date or, at the latest, within the timeframe established by law. Delays are not acceptable.
How an Employee Management Platform Can Help
Manual work creates opportunities for errors—incorrect calculations for unused annual leave, termination decisions containing incorrect information, or REGES Online extracts generated too late. Every error consumes time and exposes the company to unnecessary risks.
A modern employee management platform, such as Smartree’s MyStaff suite, can automate the entire final settlement workflow. The platform instantly calculates outstanding salary entitlements and employee compensation, generates the necessary documents in just a few clicks, and synchronizes data with REGES Online.
The result: fewer calculation errors, no overlooked documents, and a faster, more efficient offboarding process.
Beyond Paperwork: The Value of the Exit Interview
Proper offboarding does not end with legal compliance. It is also a strategic moment for the company. Why is the employee leaving? What did not work within the team, management, or organizational culture? The answers to these questions are more valuable than they may initially seem.
Employees who resign tend to be significantly more open than those who remain. A well-structured exit interview can reveal systemic issues that no internal assessment might identify—from leadership style to gaps in onboarding or compensation processes.
How to Turn Exit Interview Data into Retention Strategies
Feedback collected informally, on paper, or by email is quickly lost and cannot be analyzed at an organizational level. A dedicated exit interview module integrated into an HR platform centralizes all responses, organizes them by category, and turns them into actionable data for management.
Through accurate exit HR reporting, management can identify turnover patterns, intervene in departments with a higher risk of employee attrition, and make data-driven retention decisions rather than relying on assumptions.
The difference between a company that repeatedly loses employees and one that manages to reduce turnover often comes down to the quality of the information it collects when employees leave.
Stress-Free and Fully Compliant Offboarding
An employee’s resignation is a process with clear legal implications, strict deadlines, and mandatory documents. The notice period must be calculated correctly, the final settlement must include all outstanding salary entitlements and compensation, REGES Online must be updated on time, and the employee must receive all legally required documents.
When managed manually, this process is prone to errors with real consequences: ITM fines, employment disputes, and additional administrative costs.
Managed through Smartree’s solutions—either by outsourcing personnel administration services or implementing the MyStaff platform—offboarding becomes a digital, standardized, and controlled workflow. Each document is generated accurately, every deadline is monitored, and exit interview data becomes a valuable retention tool.
If you want to turn an employee’s departure from a moment of legal vulnerability into a secure and efficient process, the Smartree team is ready to help.
We are Smartree, a trusted partner in payroll outsourcing and personnel administration, with 25 years of experience in the Romanian HR market. We provide innovative, strategic, and automated solutions for your HR challenges. Beyond the expertise of our payroll, HR, and labor law specialists, and beyond the continuously MyStaff platform, one promise remains: to support you with responsibility and professionalism. Contact us for a discussion!
