Terminating
an employee from a company is never an easy thing to do. An employee may be terminated for lack of
performance, breaking the rules, long term illness, or even being laid off due
to a bad economy. A manager who has to
make that hard decision to terminate an employee needs to make sure that they
keep security factored into the termination steps.
Every
employee who works for a company has some form of access to the company and the
company assets. An employee may have
only access to a building using a keycard.
An employee may have access to confidential information via a computer /
network and/or paper files with confidential information. An employee who has been terminated can cause
problems for a company if the termination is not handled properly.
One key
thing is to track what accesses each employee has including physical and access
to computers. If access is not tracked
properly, it is much more difficult to make sure that all access is revoked
upon termination. A large amount of
employees have remote access to company computers also. All of this access must be tracked so that
when an employee leaves a company voluntarily or otherwise that the access can
be revoked. If any of the employee’s
access is not revoked upon ending their employment, this would allow them to do
harm to the network or the people in the company.
How should a
company handle terminating a potentially violent employee? This is a tough situation because if a
manager is concerned about a violent reaction from an employee, they may fear
for their safety or the safety of other employees in the company. If an employee is being terminated and there
is worry about repercussions, the manager should have another person involved
such as a security person. The location
of the termination may need to be a neutral area away from other
employees. Sometimes employees may not
be given an opportunity to clear their own desks depending on the circumstances
due to potential backlash due to anger at being terminated. Extra security may be warranted after a
termination of a volatile employee. There
has been an increase in workplace violence in recent years so all these steps
are necessary to ensure the safety of employees in a company (Dimoff n.d.).
It is
important that employee electronic and paper files be reviewed for important
information for the company. If all the
files are deleted and/or thrown away, there may be important information that
is lost. Files may also be valuable if
the employee is suspected of doing illegal activities while employed.
It is also
important to consider these things when an employee resigns because
resignations may also be done by an angry employee. It is important to monitor employee actions
at all times and especially in the days or weeks after a resignation is
submitted before the employee has their access revoked. One thing that can be considered is to start
revoking unnecessary access as soon as possible to limit the exposure to the company.
All these things
are very important to consider when an employee is leaving a company whether
voluntarily or not.
References:
- Dimoff, T. i-Sight (n.d.). 6 Tips to Lower Risk in High-Risk Employee Terminations. Retrieved from http://i-sight.com/employee-relations/6-tips-to-lower-risk-in-high-risk-employee-terminations/
- Jones, R. About Money (n.d.). Employee Termination from an IT Perspective. Retrieved from http://humanresources.about.com/od/whenemploymentends/a/it_termination.htm
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