It happens at every company—an employee comes and eventually goes. It’s important for the state of your company’s IT team that proper procedures are made and taken to ensure that when an employee separates from your business, they have no access back into any accounts and that their data is maintained if necessary.
Creating and following an IT termination guide can help ensure that past employees can’t keep accessing internal company information and that any important work, communications, emails, or other data is stored and available for the rest of the team that still may need it.
Natural Networks is a Managed IT Services Provider. We help businesses of all sizes manage termination of employees from their corporate IT infrastructure every day. These are some of the most critical aspects when it comes to ensuring full IT separation when an employee leaves a company.
Removing Employee Accounts and Licenses
Ensuring a smooth separation between an employee and your business can depend on a few key factors in your IT infrastructure. Sometimes it’s not in our power when an employee leaves, and there are unfortunate circumstances when an employee abandons their position without notice.
For these instances, having a record of an employee’s access to software licenses, the data they had access to, and the various accounts they worked in will all go a long way in guaranteeing quick removal and potential data loss.
After an employee leaves your company, it’s important to ensure the account passwords are changed. Any licenses that provided access to software like Microsoft Office, QuickBooks, Adobe software, etc. are revoked from the user account at time of termination. If the terminated employee had a company owned laptop, it’s a good idea to update the password and have your managed IT services provider archive any data that may be necessary from the device. Removing any old licenses can help save on IT overhead costs.
Managing Employee Data
Having a specific location for employees’ archived data in an area that’s accessible to the network but still password protected is a good idea. Specifically, preserving employee emails is important because the data in emails could be necessary for the rest of the team or a new employee taking over the role.
An archive directory can be used to store employee emails, computer data, and any other key information that will help keep team cohesion and ensure that work can continue smoothly even after a departure. Finally, after data access to network or cloud data is revoked, licenses are removed, and data is archived, removal of the employee’s accounts from their workstation can begin.
Be ensuring a proper system of procedures to list and target the software, data, and email accessibility each employee has will help pinpoint what needs attention during employee termination. Just by following a few of the basic steps above can make unpredicted turnover much easier. Natural Networks is a Managed IT Services Provider, and we work with many of our clients to ensure that their IT is maintained, and policies are in-place to ensure efficient workflow for all new employees or a set data deletion process is in place when employee termination occurs. If you’re interested in learning more about Managed IT Services, give us a call today!
