Just as the onboarding process of new employees is of significant importance, employee offboarding for MSPs is critically important. Whether the separation is due to resignation, termination, or retirement, the offboarding process should be quick and follow a systematic process.
The following 4 steps can guide you to organize your offboarding process in remote and hybrid work environments:
Step 1: Assessment and Equipment Retrieval
- Determine if the employee is high-risk, if so:
- Immediately disable the employee’s access to all systems
- Remove all organizational data from employee-owned devices
- Ensure the employee returns any company-owned assets and equipment
- Compile a list of all locations where the employee had access to critical data and stored data (including cloud storage platforms)
Step 2: Email and Phone Access
- Reset the password in your email system and disable the Active Directory ID
- If the employee used a personal cell phone or tablet to access work email, wipe or remove the email account
- Remove the employee from generic and specialized email distribution lists
- Ensure the employee’s phone is not forwarded to any external numbers and change the voicemail password
- Create an out-of-office message for emails in accordance with your organization’s communication guidelines
- Set up of mail forwarding (if applicable)
Step 3: Network and Cloud Access
- Terminate VPN and review any remote access methods
- Remove the employee from all access control security groups
- Move any association files that may have been stored outside your primary file repositories to a central location
- Revoke access to your corporate cloud storage accounts
- Remove association files from any personal cloud storage accounts
Step 4: Account Credentials and Licenses
- Remove or change credentials (usernames/passwords)
- Review your password database logs to determine which passwords were accessed by the employee
- Remove the ex-employee from the authorized list of contacts
- Require related staff to change their passwords if there is any risk of shared passwords
- Contact vendors the terminated employee managed or worked with to alert them of the employee’s departure and provide a new contact
- Reclaim employee licenses
A smooth offboarding process ensures security and the proper transfer of information. Check out our companion post on 4 Steps to Successful Employee Onboarding for MSPs.
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