Part 4: Managing joiners, leavers and movers

Here are a few common sense tips for managing the privileges, equipment and other assets of those joining, leaving or moving around your company:

1. Some joiners request access to internal systems before their official start date, in order that they can start introducing themselves by email. This is inadvisable, as the employee probably won't have signed all his contracts yet and thus will not be governed by the company's IT conditions of use or acceptable use policies.

2. If key clients and external partners are given access to your company's network, ensure that each registered user has a unique username so that their actions can be tracked and logged. If such a user changes employer or job function, consider whether their access is still relevant. For example, their new employer might be a competitor of one of your company's external divisions.

3. If an employee changes roles within the company, examine the systems to which they have access and consider how this needs changing. Promoting an employee doesn't necessarily mean that they still require access to all of the systems they were previously entitled to use.

4. Always ensure that access to key systems is closed as soon as an employee leaves at the end of their notice period. Use of identity management tool will help ensure that all access privileges assigned to the employee have been revoked.

5. When an employee leaves, make sure that all company assets have been returned. Use of automated provisioning software can make this onerous task far less painful than it otherwise might be.

6. Check that former staff are no longer on any internal email lists. This is especially important if their mail was forwarded to an external account, as they may be able to continue reading it even if their access to the corporate email system has been revoked.

7. If dismissing an employee, withdraw their access to key systems immediately before, or during, the dismissal.

8. Don't destroy usage records when staff leave. Their abuses of the system might not come to light until some months after they have departed so it's important to hang onto the evidence.

9. Audit your systems to ensure that no accounts belonging to former staff are still active. If you find any, check the last login date and investigate any which raise concerns.

10. Change intruder alarm and numeric-pad lock combinations regularly, and especially when someone who knows the numbers leaves or is dismissed.