Digital footprints today define modern work environments. Employees start making these as soon as they are hired. They will get a company email address, application logins, access to corporate networks, and update their social media profiles with their latest employment details.
When an employee resigns and leaves a company, an offboarding process will take place to decouple employees from the company’s technology assets. This process is often not comprehensive and can lead to cybersecurity risks. Some usual challenges include the malicious use of the company’s email address and the leaking of the company’s sensitive files left on a former employee’s computer.
According to Webinar Care, 20%of surveyed businesses say that they experienced a data breach that is linked to a former employee.
A comprehensive digital offboarding process includes revoking access and privileges to company data and much more. This crucial process needs to take place with all departing employees to reduce risks.
In this article, we have included a 10-step Employee Offboarding Checklist to help you cover all your bases.
Employee Offboarding Checklist
#1 Knowledge Transfer
A large amount of corporate knowledge can disappear when an employee leaves an organization. It is important to capture this during a digital offboarding process. Examples:
- Specific documents, procedures, and workflows
- How to perform specific tasks efficiently – for example, the best way to enter sales data into CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
Perform knowledge download during the exit interview to make sure that valuable information is not lost. If possible, get departing employees to document all required information so that the knowledge is available to the next employee after they leave the company.
#2 Social Media Connections to the Company
Address any social media connections with the former employee. Part of your employee offboarding process should include all social media profiles that are used for company posts. Key areas to look out for:
- Access to your company’s Facebook page from an employee’s personal account
- Advertising accounts linked to employee’s personal social media accounts
- Privilege to post on corporate LinkedIn page
#3 Identify All Apps & Logins the Person Has Been Using for Work
Ideally, your HR and/or IT department should have a list of all the apps and website logins that an employee has. Make sure that you know all the apps that are used by your employees, including personal and unofficial ones. When an employee is leaving, decide if you want to continue using the personal and unofficial apps.
#4 Change Email Password
Change the employee’s email password once an employee leaves the company. Former employees can gain information by accessing emails that are left open for access. Former employees may also use their email account access for malicious purposes. Old email accounts can be purged once forwarding is completed.
#5 Change Employee Passwords for Cloud Business Apps
Change all app passwords that are used for work. Employees may have access to work apps on personal devices. Even if access to the work computer is no longer available, it does not mean that they cannot access their old accounts. Changing the password locks them out irrespective of the device they are using. You can also simplify the process with a single sign-on solution.
#6 Recover Any Company Assets
All company-owned devices should be retrieved from the employee’s possession. Keep track of all devices that are issued to employees. During the onboarding process, you should record all devices issued to employees. When you lose track of the devices, there is a chance that these employees may continue keeping those devices.
#7 Recover Data on Employee Personal Devices
Many companies use a bring your own device (BYOD) policy which saves them money but would make offboarding more difficult. Data and access that are stored in those devices may not be retrievable. Back up the data from employees’ personal devices if these are not stored in company storage solutions.
#8 Transfer Data Ownership & Close Employee Accounts
It is extremely easy to forget to close unused accounts, this can cause bloating of the number of usersusers, and this increases the risk of hacking. Close old employee cloud accounts and transfer their data to another designated account. A substantial number of unmonitored accounts is risky as anyone with malicious intentions of gaining access can steal data unnoticed.
#9 Revoke Access by Employee’s Devices to Your Apps and Network
If you have a BYOD policy, it is important to have an endpoint device management system. This allows you to revoke device access, remove a former employee’s device from the approved list of devices in your system and more. To find out more about endpoint management solutions like Microsoft Intune, contact us.
#10 Change Any Building Digital Passcodes
Finally, make sure that physical access to your office premises is also secured. If you are using digital passes, door passcodes, or physical entry cards, make sure that they are revoked to prevent unauthorised access.
Implement a Robust Offboarding Process to Minimise Security Risk
Whether your employee is leaving the company on good terms or via termination, you need to proactively address digital offboarding to prevent potential security risks. Use the above 10-step employee offboarding checklist as a guide or reach out to us on 1300 440 444 for a free consultation on how to create a positive employee experience during the offboarding process.