IT and Employee Onboarding & Offboarding

June 2024 | Nextworks

Employee onboarding and offboarding procedures play a crucial role in maintaining cybersecurity within organizations. Here’s why:

• Risk Minimization: Effective onboarding and offboarding help reduce insider incidents caused by errors, privilege misuse, negligence, and other factors. By properly managing access during these processes, organizations can minimize the risk of data breaches and security incidents.


• Employee Retention: Well-executed onboarding contributes to talent retention. When new employees feel adequately trained and integrated into the organization, they are less likely to leave. High turnover rates can lead to security vulnerabilities, as departing employees might retain access or sensitive information.


• Improved Productivity and Engagement: Companies with robust onboarding programs report higher time-to-productivity ratios and increased employee engagement. Engaged employees are more likely to follow security protocols and contribute to a security-conscious culture.

Prioritizing secure onboarding and offboarding helps protect sensitive data, reduces risks, and fosters a security-conscious organizational culture.

Best Practices for Employee Onboarding into your IT Environment

Here is an example of an onboarding procedure common to most organizations:

• Computer & Network Setup: Ensure the employee’s new computer has everything they need to get started on day one, even before orientation and training begin. It’s burdensome to learn a new system when the tools you need are not functioning properly.


• Account Management: All accounts for on-premise and cloud software systems should be created. It’s highly encouraged for the new employee to store their new passwords in their personal area of a centralized organization-wide password management system.


• Phone Management: If using a phone system, the new employee should be provided an extension and phone system training. They should set their voicemail message. If softphones are used, they can be setup on their smartphone.


• Email Access: For those that need email on the go, the employee’s smartphone can be setup for email.


• Access Management: Set up access to systems and resources promptly. Ensure permissions align with job requirements. Regularly review and revoke access when needed.


• Security Awareness: Educate new employees about phishing, social engineering, and password hygiene. Promote a security-conscious mindset from day one.


• Cybersecurity Training: New hires should undergo a cybersecurity training course and exam. Random phishing tests and quarterly micro training help to keep your staff abreast of current techniques used by cybercriminals to extort your organization.

Often Overlooked – The Importance of Complete Offboarding

Employee offboarding is a critical process in cybersecurity that aims to ensure that employees leaving an organization do not leave behind security vulnerabilities or expose the business to potential cybersecurity risks. Here are some reasons why it’s crucial:

• Data Theft: Outgoing employees may intentionally or accidentally take corporate information with them, including self-developed code, company confidential data, or customer information. Preventing data theft is essential to safeguard sensitive information.


• Malicious Insiders: Disgruntled employees who know they are leaving can become malicious insiders. They might perform acts like data extraction, manipulation, or installing malware before anyone realizes what’s happening. Proper offboarding reduces this risk.


• Shadow IT and SaaS Usage: Ineffective offboarding can lead to unused services, software, and cloud applications still being charged to the organization. Proper offboarding helps deprovision these resources.

Quickly revoking access credentials (such as passwords) ensures departing employees cannot misuse their privileges after leaving.

Swift Communication with IT

When initiating the process hiring and firing, IT is often one of the first teams to be notified. Streamlining communication with IT not only accelerates the process but saves time for each party. It is important that IT knows everything they need to complete their duties. IT should have a checklist of onboarding and offboarding procedures.

Forms are advisable (instead of often incomplete email requests). Here are the forms that Nextworks uses:

❏   Add Employee Form

❏   Remove Employee Form

❏   Replace Employee Form

Remember, a well-executed onboarding and offboarding process protects both the organization’s reputation and its cybersecurity posture.

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