Everything You Need to Know About Employee Onboarding and Offboarding for IT

June 16, 2022

Everything You Need to Know About Employee Onboarding and Offboarding for IT

You may already know that onboarding and offboarding mark two very important times in an employee’s journey at a company. They serve as important bookends, working to support both the employee and employer by streamlining two different transitional periods. However, there are several nuances that you must also consider when onboarding and offboarding for IT and tech employees. Though much of the process remains the same, there are several different things that must be adjusted to cater for your technical hires. Effective onboarding and offboarding will help you to retain your talented hires and ensure that they are engaged in the workplace.

Onboarding for IT

Once a new employee decides to join the team, they will typically undergo the process termed onboarding. This involves all the activities that the new employee has to undertake to ensure that they have the tools necessary to start and be deployed at work. For more technical hires, it may be important to ensure that they have the proper equipment and means to complete their duties, this may mean supplying them with a company issued laptop or other necessary devices. This may also mean providing them with access to certain data and accounts as well. Having a standard operating procedure can be helpful for recognizing which tasks an employee has to undergo once they have been hired and ensures that the onboarding process is standardized.

It is also important to integrate the new hire into the company culture and social atmosphere. Assigning the new hire to a mentor will help them to acclimate to both the social and work environment. They can ask their mentor for advice or guidance with any questions they may have about their work. By having a mentor, new hires are able to grow and develop professionally. Furthermore, with technical duties, it can also be hard to align their tasks with the company goals and mission. Take the time to convey your organization’s value and mission to your new hires so they can understand what they are helping contribute to.

Offboarding for IT

The opposite of onboarding is offboarding, this is when the employee is about to leave the company either due to termination, resignation or retirement. This process may involve passing on their knowledge or training their replacement or new employees. In technical positions, onboarding is an incredibly important process because it ensures that your data is safe and secure. Risks of improper offboarding can include: access to sensitive data, security risks, and unnecessary expenses. Employees that are not properly offboarded may continue to have access to your company’s sensitive information and may unintentionally cause harm. Again, it is good to follow a standard operating procedure for this process as it can help you to go through and recall all of the important tasks that need to be done. It is important to take back all the equipment that was lent out to the employee, revoke all their security access and ensure that all sensitive data files are recovered. Running through your standard operating procedure, you should be able to verify which systems the employee had access to and subsequently terminate their access. Efficient offboarding can help ensure that your company is safe, secure and that all processes continue to run smoothly.

What Else Can I Do?

Here at Cyber Unit, we provide specialists that take care of all your IT needs in a timely, professional and cost-effective manner. Get in touch with Techtone today for a customized IT support plan that suits your budget. Let us help you with employee onboarding and offboarding so that you can focus on growing your business.

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