What IT Departments Need To Do When a Remote Employee Leaves a Company

As nearly the whole business world transitions to a remote workforce, it presents a brand new set of challenges. One of the biggest questions companies are being forced to ask themselves is, ‘What do IT departments need to do when a remote worker leaves the company?’ At Revolution Group, we understand the challenges associated with an employee leaving the company, voluntarily or not.

I always say everything comes down to “People, Process, and Technology” all working together to have a positive outcome. Handling Remote Users isn’t a new problem but has obviously exploded in scale due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Forgetting technology for a moment, it is critical that companies have a documented onboarding/off-boarding process for employees. Companies obviously have varying levels of this process in place, ranging from none to manual to semi-automated to fully automated. Some industries may have regulatory requirements and guidelines that ensure good policies and controls are already in place. When an employee leaves the company, for any reason, it requires coordination across business units, including human resources, legal, various business unit departments, and IT.

It’s critical that the organization has a firm understanding of the physical and data assets that the individual has access to, or can potentially access. Some technology solutions can provide simplification and speed around this process. For instance, leveraging (SSO) Single Sign-On can allow quick disabling of Accounts and can discontinue access to downstream applications; for example, network access, email access, core business application access, and more. Some organizations are leveraging Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools to monitor, alert, and prevent data loss. Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions can also be used to manage access to company assets from both company-provided and personally owned devices.

Once access has been disabled and the individual has been notified, the next step is to retrieve the physical assets. Even in the best of circumstances, the separation process is already stressful enough, so it is important to make this process as simple as possible. The best practices would be to send the individual the shipping materials and pre-paid postage and coordinate a drop-off at a shipping service, like a UPS or Fed-Ex store. It is important that both the company and the individual have the same expectations of what is being returned. In the current environment, with COVID-19 and restrictions and pre-cautions, it makes more sense to limit as many touchpoints as possible.

• Steps for shipping & receiving during COVID-19
• Individual cleans, inventories, and packages equipment
• Shipping materials & pre-paid postage provided by the company
• Individual coordinates pickup
• The company receives and quarantines inventoried equipment while limiting physical touchpoints
• The company provides confirmation on equipment received
• The company cleans equipment and returns it to available inventory for use

If your organization needs help with their off-boarding strategy from an IT perspective or has other IT security or infrastructure needs, Revolution Group is here to help.