Can a workflow route to the subject employee during termination approval?

Hi Everyone,

I have a question and would appreciate your insights on it.

A Lead HRBP raised a termination transaction for an employee. As per the approval configuration, the workflow should go:
Lead HRBP → HOD → CHRO

However, in this case, the employee does not have any HOD assigned. Based on my understanding, the approval should directly move to the CHRO.

But in PROD, the transaction is first getting assigned to the employee for whom the termination was raised, and only after that it moves to the CHRO.

I tested the same scenario in the TEST environment using the same steps, and there the approval directly goes to the CHRO without being assigned to the employee.