Backfilling an EOR Hire Who Leaves Early: Replacement Guarantees and Keeping Work Moving

Your new backend developer in Minsk joined three months ago. They’ve shipped a couple of features and recently joined the on-call rotation. This morning, their resignation letter arrived.

If you employ people in Belarus through an employer of record, you won’t have to deal with the paperwork for their exit. That part is covered. What the EOR can’t do is keep your project on track or find the next person, and those are usually the harder problems.

Below we go through the notice periods Belarusian law allows, how recruiters’ replacement guarantees usually work, and how to keep things moving until a new person starts.

Who handles what when an EOR hire resigns

An early resignation sets off three separate pieces of work. They often get lumped together, and that’s usually how a few days of delay turn into a few weeks.

The formal exit is the EOR’s responsibility, since it’s the legal employer. It prepares the termination documents, works out the final pay and makes sure everything is settled on time. Under Belarusian rules, all payments owed to the employee, including compensation for unused vacation, are due on the day of dismissal, and the employee gets their labour book back on the same day.

The work in progress is your responsibility. Your EOR has no way of knowing which pull requests are half-done, who has the deployment credentials or which client contact only one person talks to.

Finding the replacement falls to whoever does your recruiting. If an agency filled the original role, check whether its contract included a replacement guarantee.

How much notice you’ll actually get

That depends on whether the employee is still on probation and on the type of employment contract they signed. Both are governed by the Labour Code, which is listed in the International Labour Organization’s NATLEX database of national labour laws.

During probation

Probation in Belarus lasts up to three months. Until it ends, either the employee or the employer can terminate the contract with three days’ written notice. So if someone decides in their second week that the job isn’t for them, the handover has to happen fast.

Indefinite-term contracts

An employee on an indefinite-term contract has to give one month’s notice in writing. They don’t need the employer’s agreement to leave, though the two sides can agree on an earlier last day. Until the notice period runs out, the employee is also free to withdraw the resignation.

Fixed-term contracts

Fixed-term contracts are common in Belarus and usually run for one to five years. On this type of contract, an employee can’t resign just because they want to. They can leave early if the employer agrees, if they have a valid reason such as illness, a move to another city or a breach of the contract by the employer, or in a handful of situations neither side controls.

Even so, agreeing on a leaving date is usually the sensible choice. Keeping a developer who wants to go for another year and a half rarely works out, for them or for the project, so a fixed-term contract shouldn’t be part of your retention plan.

Before your first hire, find out which kind of contract your EOR uses, because the notice you can expect depends on it. If you’re not sure which one fits your team, our HR consulting team can explain the differences.

How replacement guarantees work

With a replacement guarantee, the recruiter agrees to find a new candidate without charging another fee if the person they placed leaves within an agreed period. Many agencies set that period to match probation, because that’s when a poor fit usually becomes obvious.

Guarantees come with conditions. The usual ones are that the person resigned or was dismissed for performance, that the role hasn’t changed, that you paid the recruiter’s invoices on time and that you told them about the departure promptly. Some agencies offer a partial refund instead of a replacement, or let you choose.

Redundancies, roles that were reshaped after the hire and hiring freezes are normally excluded. And even when the guarantee applies, it only covers the recruiter’s fee. The weeks the seat stays empty and the hours your team spends interviewing are still on you.

The EOR’s billing is more straightforward. The employee keeps working, and keeps being paid, until the last day of notice, so the EOR fee is usually charged until then. Look through your EOR agreement for a minimum term, an exit fee or a deposit you’re owed back. The final payroll will include payment for unused vacation, which your EOR or payroll provider can estimate for you once notice is in.

It pays to read the guarantee terms when you sign with the recruiter, while there’s still room to negotiate them. Find out how long the guarantee lasts, whether you get a replacement or a refund, whether the replacement comes with its own guarantee and how quickly you need to report a departure.

Keeping work moving during the notice month

What usually hurts most is losing what the person knows. Engineers describe this with the bus factor, the number of people who could leave before a project stalls. On small teams, it’s often one, and the notice month is the best chance you’ll get to increase it.

Sit down with the leaver in the first few days and agree on a plan. Most people who resign early still want to leave on good terms, and they find it much easier to help when they know what’s expected. The rest of the team will also want to see that someone has the situation in hand.

A four-week handover plan

In the first week, make a list of everything the person owns: active tasks, recurring duties, systems, accounts and any knowledge that isn’t written down anywhere. Then put a name next to each item, even if that person is only covering until the new hire starts.

In the second week, the leaver writes things down and explains them to others. A recorded screen-share of a tricky system is often more useful than pages of documentation. Whoever is taking over should work alongside the leaver on real tasks during this week.

In the third week, the successor takes the lead and the leaver checks their work. Use this week to move ownership of documents, repositories and shared accounts. Google Workspace admins, for instance, can transfer Drive files to a new owner before the departing employee’s account is closed.

The fourth week is for finishing off: last code reviews, a final check of who has access to what, and arranging for the laptop and other equipment to come back. On the last day, switch off access. The EOR then completes the termination and the final payment.

One thing should be settled long before anyone resigns. The employment contract needs to assign intellectual property to your company from the first day. Sorting that out during someone’s notice period is much harder.

Covering the gap

There will almost always be some time between one person’s last day and the next person’s first. Teams usually cover it by sharing the work out for a few weeks, hiring a short-term contractor for clearly defined tasks, or asking a colleague to take on part of the role. If that last option runs longer than a sprint or two, make sure the extra work is recognized.

The quickest fix is often the candidate who came second in the original search. They’ve already met the team and seen the product, and a few months later, some of them are still looking.

Speeding up the backfill

Begin the search as soon as you have the resignation letter. Whoever you hire will most likely need to give their current employer a month’s notice too, so waiting until the last day can easily mean two months with nobody in the role. A specialized IT recruitment partner can restart the search within a few days, beginning with the shortlist from the previous round.

You can reuse most of what you prepared the first time, such as the job description, the interview scorecard and the salary range. Go through each of them again, though, in light of what you now know about the role.

This is also a good moment to ask whether the role should stay the same. Maybe it needs someone more senior, or maybe part of it should move to another team member. It’s much cheaper to make that change now than after the next hire.

Have a frank conversation with the person who’s leaving. Early leavers usually have one clear reason, whether it’s the job itself, the pay, the manager or the first weeks of onboarding, and you’ll want to know which before you hire someone into the same role.

Why it’s worth the effort

Losing someone early costs more than it seems. Gallup estimates that replacing an employee can cost between one-half and two times their annual salary once recruiting, onboarding and lost productivity are added up.

A replacement guarantee takes care of the recruiting fee. The rest of that cost goes down only if the handover is solid and the new hire arrives quickly.

Reducing early departures in the first place

When people leave within a few months, it’s usually for one of three reasons. The job wasn’t what they were told it would be, the offer stopped looking good once they’d compared notes with friends, or they felt left on their own during onboarding.

You can deal with the first two before the offer goes out. Describe the job as it really is, including the dull parts, and compare your offer with our IT salary benchmarks for Belarus so it holds up after the first few months.

The third is about the first 90 days. Plan the onboarding properly and schedule check-ins at 30, 60 and 90 days. Of the three, the 30-day conversation is the most useful, because there’s still time to fix whatever isn’t working.

Companies in the High-Tech Park have one more option. HTP residents are allowed to sign non-compete agreements with employees, as long as they pay compensation for the period the restriction applies. Such an agreement can keep a former employee away from competitors for a while, but it can’t stop them from resigning in the first place.

FAQ

Can an EOR employee in Belarus quit immediately?

No. During probation, they have to give three days’ written notice. After probation, someone on an indefinite-term contract gives a month’s notice unless you both agree on an earlier date. Someone on a fixed-term contract can only leave early by agreement or for a valid reason.

Do we keep paying the EOR during the notice period?

In most cases, yes. The employee is still working and still on payroll until the last day, so the salary and the EOR fee continue until then. The last payroll also includes payment for any unused vacation.

Can the employee change their mind?

If they’re on an indefinite-term contract, yes. They can withdraw the resignation at any point before the notice period ends. The main exception is when someone else has already been formally invited to take the job.

Does a replacement guarantee apply if we let the person go?

Often it does, as long as the dismissal was for performance. Redundancies and changes to the role are usually excluded, so check the wording in your recruiter’s contract.

Can a fixed-term contract stop someone from leaving?

It narrows the legal options for leaving early, but it won’t make anyone want to stay. An employee who feels stuck rarely does their best work.

How quickly can a replacement start?

Expect at least a month after they accept the offer, because most candidates will need to serve notice with their current employer. A runner-up who’s between jobs can start sooner, and a contractor can cover the gap in the meantime.

Final thoughts

An early resignation is disruptive, but it’s very manageable once everyone knows their part. Your EOR takes care of the formal exit, your team runs the handover, and the search for a replacement starts the day the letter arrives. After that, put what you’ve learned into the next hire’s first months, for example with a 90-day onboarding plan for remote Belarusian developers.

It also helps to prepare before anyone resigns. Teams that keep their documentation current and stay in touch with good candidates from past searches tend to recover from early departures in weeks rather than months.

If someone on your Belarus team has just handed in their notice, or you’d like to plan ahead for the next time it happens, talk to our team.