Last Chance Corruption
Nick Kimpton is a Canberra based partner who provides contract services to Lift Strategic.
I would like to acknowledge the work of Dr Alistair Ping and Professor Daniel Effron and his colleagues, whose research and insights have informed the ideas and perspectives in this article.
The integrity risks hiding in employee exit processes
Most organisations invest considerable time, effort, and resources into ensuring they recruit the right people. Pre-employment screening, referee checks, criminal history checks, conflict of interest declarations, and security clearances have become standard features of contemporary recruitment processes across government and the private sector.
The underlying objective is clear: prevent corruption, misconduct, and other integrity risks from entering the organisation.
Far less attention, however, is paid to what happens when employees leave. And that may represent a significant blind spot for organisations.
Drawing on behavioural insights research, there is a compelling argument that employee exits represent a heightened corruption and misconduct risk period - one that many organisations have not adequately considered.
I refer to this as "last-chance corruption."
What is last-chance corruption?
Last-chance corruption occurs when an individual engages in dishonest, unethical, or self-serving conduct because they perceive they are facing their final opportunity to obtain a benefit before leaving an organisation.
The conduct may not involve large-scale fraud or sophisticated corruption schemes. In fact, it can be far more commonplace:
claiming hours not actually worked on a final timesheet
failing to record leave already taken
deliberately withholding information that could reduce a leave pay out
submitting questionable travel or expense acquittals
retaining low-value assets that should be returned
making personal purchases on a corporate credit card shortly before departure, and
avoiding repayment of minor debts owed to the organisation.
Individually, these actions might appear insignificant. Collectively they can represent a recurring integrity vulnerability which is left unmanaged.
The behavioural science behind the risk
Importantly, this research suggests most people do not simply ask themselves:
"Can I get away with it?"
Instead, they ask:
"Can I do what I want in this situation without feeling or appearing like a bad person?"
This distinction matters.
Most employees do not view themselves as corrupt. They want to maintain a positive self-image while simultaneously benefiting from opportunities available to them.
Dr Alistair Ping’s research into why good people do bad things helps explain this tension. People can preserve their positive self-image by using flawed justifications that allow dishonest conduct to feel reasonable, deserved, or harmless.
Effron and his colleagues found that when people are presented with a fixed number of opportunities to act dishonestly, they are significantly more likely to cheat when they believe it is their final opportunity to do so.
In one experiment, participants were more likely to overbill for their work when they believed they were completing their final task. In other studies, the odds of cheating were almost three times higher on the final opportunity compared with earlier opportunities.
The driving force appears to be the desire to avoid later regret. As opportunities disappear, they become more psychologically valuable. People become increasingly motivated to avoid missing out on a benefit they believe they could have obtained.
In other words, when someone believes this is their last chance, the temptation increases.
Effron’s work explains why the final opportunity matters. Ping’s work helps explain how people justify taking it.
Why employee departures create the perfect environment
Employee departures contain several of the ingredients associated with the last-chance effect.
An employee knows:
they will soon no longer be subject to organisational systems and controls
future consequences may be perceived as less likely or less relevant
managers are often focused on operational continuity rather than compliance
administrative checks are frequently completed after the employee has departed, and
responsibility for final approvals is often delegated to a single manager.
Applying Ping’s research, employee departure can also be viewed as a possible 'trigger event.' It may bring unresolved feelings of unfairness or grievance to the surface. For some employees, the exit process may feel like the final opportunity to balance the ledger.
At exactly the point behavioural science suggests risk may be elevated, many organisations reduce scrutiny.
This creates an over-reliance on trust. Not because trust is wrong, but because trust is often unsupported by effective controls.
The overlooked weakness in integrity control frameworks
Many organisations have mature onboarding processes. They verify identity. They assess suitability. They conduct background checks. They require declarations and training before a new employee is granted system access.
By comparison, offboarding processes frequently consist of a checklist signed by a manager confirming:
timesheets are complete
leave records are accurate
assets have been returned
corporate cards have been acquitted, and
financial obligations have been discharged.
In practice, the organisation is often relying on two people:
The departing employee to accurately disclose relevant information, and
The manager to verify those disclosures.
Neither may have sufficient information, time, or incentive to thoroughly validate every claim. The result is an integrity control framework that becomes weaker precisely when behavioural risk may be increasing.
This weakness matters because poor controls do not merely increase opportunity - they may also increase moral wiggle room.
Where verification is light, delayed or dependent on self-reporting, it becomes easier for a departing employee to tell themselves that the conduct is harmless, deserved, invisible or unlikely to matter.
There may be a second behavioural risk
There may also be another risk at play: moral licensing.
People often justify minor unethical behaviour by drawing on a history of positive conduct. A long-serving employee may unconsciously rationalise dishonest behaviour by thinking:
"I've given years of service to this organisation."
"I've worked unpaid overtime for years."
"They owe me."
"It's only a small amount."
"I've earned it."
The employee does not see themselves as stealing. They see themselves as balancing the ledger.
The exit story: balancing the ledger
Ping’s research helps explain why this matters.
In an exit context, a departing employee may not frame a false timesheet, unrecorded leave, retained asset or inflated expense claim as misconduct. They may frame it as compensation for unpaid effort, poor treatment, or lack of recognition.
They may not think:
"I am stealing."
Instead, they may think:
"I am taking what I am owed."
Last-chance corruption may not always begin at exit. Sometimes, exit is simply where an existing pattern becomes visible. Once a person has crossed an ethical line and justified it, the next compromise can become easier.
Lessons for organisations
The good news is that addressing last-chance corruption does not require complex new integrity frameworks.
In many cases, it simply requires organisations to apply the same discipline to employee exit procedures which they already apply to employee onboarding.
Key measures may include:
Increased scrutiny during employee departures
Recognise employee cessation as a heightened integrity risk period and build additional assurance activities into exit processes. Behavioural research suggests monitoring efforts should increase when individuals perceive they are approaching their final opportunity to gain a benefit.
Visible oversight also makes rationalisation harder. It reduces the space for justifications such as "no one will notice", "it is only small" or "I have earned this".
Reducing reliance on self-reporting
Do not rely solely on employees declaring that timesheets, leave balances and financial obligations are accurate. Where practical, introduce independent verification measures.
An employee who has already reframed an inaccurate claim as fair, harmless or deserved may not experience the disclosure as dishonest in the same way an external reviewer would.
Conducting targeted assurance reviews
Regularly sample departing employee files to verify:
leave balances
timesheet accuracy
expense claims
credit card transactions, and
asset returns.
The value of these reviews is not only detection. They also make it harder for flawed justifications to take hold. The objective is not to investigate everyone, but to create credible oversight in areas where risk may be heightened.
Strengthening manager accountability
Many offboarding controls succeed or fail based on managerial oversight.
Managers should understand that signing an exit checklist is not merely an administrative exercise - it is an integrity control.
Managers should also be alert to the stories employees tell to justify questionable or dishonest claims, particularly where a departing employee appears aggrieved, unusually hurried, reluctant to provide supporting information, or frames claims in terms of fairness, loyalty or what they believe they are owed.
Using just-in-time behavioural reminders, or ‘nudges’
Small interventions can influence behaviour.
Reminding departing employees of organisational values, integrity obligations and their continuing accountability may reduce ethical fading and reinforce expectations at a critical decision point for the employee.
These reminders should interrupt rationalisation, not simply restate policy.
Requiring a departing employee to expressly declare that their final timesheet, leave records, expenses, corporate card acquittals and asset returns are accurate is one way in which organisations might reduce moral wiggle room.
Analysing data for emerging patterns
Look for trends involving departing employees, including:
spikes in leave adjustments
unusual timesheet activity
late expense claims, and
credit card transactions immediately prior to departure.
These patterns may reveal not only isolated last-minute misconduct, but also earlier ethical drift that becomes visible at the point of exit.
Patterns often identify vulnerabilities before they become systemic issues.
Last thoughts
Most employees leave organisations honestly and professionally.
But corruption prevention is not built on assumptions about what most people do. It is built on understanding when risk is most likely to emerge.
Behavioural science suggests people are more willing to cross ethical lines when they believe an opportunity is disappearing and it represents their last chance to benefit. For many organisations, employee departure processes unintentionally create those exact conditions.
The risk is not only opportunity. It is opportunity combined with a story that makes the conduct feel justified.
The question for organisations is this: If behavioural risk may be highest when people are leaving, are your integrity controls strongest when they matter most?
The Lift Strategic difference
Lift Strategic has extensive expertise in integrity management, fraud and corruption control, and governance assurance.
Our people have worked within anti-corruption commissions, supporting governments at all levels through the delivery of integrity frameworks, corruption prevention initiatives, risk advice and organisational integrity capability uplift.
We work with organisations to review, strengthen, and implement practical integrity frameworks, fraud and corruption controls, risk assessment processes, and assurance activities that are tailored and proportionate to organisational risk.
If this article has prompted questions about your organisation's integrity controls, employee exit processes, or broader fraud and corruption prevention arrangements, please contact Nick for a confidential discussion about your specific challenges and priorities.
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