SaaS trends: How will the industry develop?
9. February 2023
Proper exit management is essential to ensure IT security in companies. Here you can find an IT Offboarding Checklist with the most important points.
In contrast to onboarding, where the employee joins the company, offboarding describes the departure of an employee from an organization.
Whether the employee resigns themselves, the company decides to downsize, or decides to terminate the employee for personal or behavioral reasons, an offboarding process follows in all cases. In addition to several necessary steps with the HR team, offboarding is primarily a task for the IT department. In addition to the term offboarding, leaving the company is also referred to as Exit Management.
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Additionally, a smooth offboarding helps to leave a professional last impression on the employee. Even if the employee is no longer part of the company, they are still a brand ambassador in conversations with family, friends, etc., or even in interactions with their new employer. Therefore, when the employee leaves, a positive impression of one’s company should still be left.
The employee should, of course, return the equipment provided to him or her. Ideally, during onboarding and also at later points in time, it was documented which equipment was handed over to the employee so that it can be checked at the end that the return is also complete.
Sensitive data, system access, and key cards should be withdrawn from the employee as soon as possible. Especially if the employee’s termination is not mutually agreed upon. This is the only way to ensure that no information is disclosed to third parties, which could harm the company. Particular care should be taken here to prevent all types of logon – including remote login options, e.g., via VPN.
Some tools are often used by several employees with the same access data. In this case, passwords should be changed and the new access data should be sent to existing employees. If possible, it should also be avoided that several employees share an account. For data protection reasons, it must be clear which employee has access to what and that this access can also be withdrawn quickly.
With many applications, you have the option of deactivating the employee’s account first. In this way, the employee no longer has access, but important data is retained. In the course of this, it also makes sense to appoint a new system owner if this was the role of the former employee. It is a good idea to always assign this role to the same employee.
Even if all customers and other important contacts are informed about the termination, the former employee may still be contacted. It should be determined which employee should take over the tasks and thus to which employee the emails should be forwarded. Additionally, an automatic reply to the sender can be set that the email has been forwarded.
Most SaaS applications are paid for via credit card. If applicable, the former employee had a corporate credit card that was used to pay for tools. When he returns this to the finance department, there should be a list of all SaaS applications and licensing models, costs to be paid, and which credit card is used to pay for them. This list should be updated regularly and match the credit card invoices. This also ensures that no payment is forgotten and access to an application is not suddenly missing.
Transfer all important app data from the ex-employee. App data includes drive content, zoom recordings, documents, and other data. The employee who took over the tasks by the former employee should have access to this data. When you finish the data transfer, create an archive for your records. This is important as you can access this data if your company needs it in the future.
In most cases, it is not enough to deactivate the accounts of former employees. It may not be visible at first glance, but with most SaaS providers you continue to pay for deactivated accounts as if they were active accounts. With different licensing models, it is hard to keep track of the costs. Only by deleting the account after all important data has been backed up can you ensure that you are not paying for the SaaS application unnecessarily. With an average of 30 SaaS applications per employee, this can be a time-consuming and laborious task but is essential to avoid unnecessary SaaS costs.
To sum it up, Offboarding is an important process where some points should not be forgotten. It is advisable to implement a structured Offboarding process to make it as quick and easy as possible. In particular, the proliferation of SaaS applications makes it much more difficult to remove all access from the former employee.
Companies should consider SaaS management to make their Offboarding process as quick and easy as possible. Programs like saasmetrix allow easy Onboarding as well as Offboarding of employees with one click. In addition to a clear overview of all SaaS tools, users and costs incurred, optimizations are identified that significantly reduce SaaS costs.
Easy On- and Offboarding with one click!
