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Why Employee Onboarding & Offboarding Checklists Are Critical
New clients are almost always surprised when we create a custom onboarding and offboarding process for their organization. Our first thought is, “other providers aren’t doing this?”
A checklist style process is ideal for employees onboarding and offboarding. This significantly reduces error as the technician goes through each step before completing the service ticket. If you or your provider is currently haphazardly managing this process, please read through this entire blog because there could be major productivity and security consequences for your organization!
First and foremost, a well-defined process helps to ensure that new employees have the resources and support they need to get up to speed quickly and effectively. This includes providing access to necessary software and systems, setting up accounts and permissions, and providing training on company policies and procedures. By streamlining the onboarding process, you can help new employees hit the ground running and be productive from day one. There are a few things more frustrating for the employee or the trainer than having to stop multiple times throughout the week or waiting around to get started.
In addition to benefiting new employees, a defined onboarding process also helps to protect the security and integrity of your technology systems. Without a clear process in place, it can be difficult to ensure that access is granted in a controlled and secure manner. By having a defined process, you can ensure that new employees only have access to the systems and resources they need to do their job, and that all access is properly documented and tracked.
A defined offboarding process is also important for the technology at your business. When an employee leaves the company, it's essential to ensure that their access to systems and resources is terminated in a timely and secure manner. This helps to protect the security of your systems and prevent unauthorized access or data breaches.
In addition to the security element of an offboarding, you could lose money every time this is done incorrectly. If managed devices, software, and licenses are not terminated when the employee leaves, you will continue to receive monthly bills that add up quickly. A defined offboarding ensures these are cutoff at an agreed upon time interval to halt these expenses from chipping away at your bottom line.
How to make this process easier?
- Get with your IT Provider on defining the onboarding/offboarding checklist. Ensure it includes everything needed so items don’t fall through cracks, costing you money and time.
- Submit the service order as early as possible to give your provider enough time to work through the entire list. Rushed onboardings are never fun.
- Defined a “critical offboarding” procedure. Sometimes there just won’t be days’ notice when it comes to offboarding. It may be a need now type situation. So, ensure there is a process of locking the sure out immediately, giving the technician enough time to work through the other items without risking security.
- If you identify items on the checklist being consistently missed, communicate with your provider. What process can be adjusted to ensure nothing on the list is missed? There may be something on the list missing or the IT provider may not have good internal communication to ensure these are followed. Either way, staying on top of these will make a big impact on keeping you productive, profitable, and secure.
If you’ve read this far, you must understand the importance of doing this right. Review your current process. Is it effective? Does it limit security, productivity and expenses? If not, work with your provider to improve this process.
Unfortunately, some providers just will not be consistent with this. If you need assistance from a local technology expert, please reach out. We’re happy to help!
