Transcript
Speaker: Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy.
Speaker: There is a link in the description which has a built-in discount. Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Apocetor and people who think outside the box about how work works.
Speaker: with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone. I am your host, Michael Middleward. In this episode of The Independent Minds, IT specialist Matt Chapman, the founder of mc-tech.uk, and I will be discussing the importance of an IT department having a strategy for what happens when an employee joins, moves or leaves.
Speaker: Essentially, we are going to be talking about why it is important for IT t and HR to coordinate their activities. Matt is based in Bollington. No, me neither. Well, it's in Cheshire and looks very nice.
Speaker: If I ever do have the need to visit Bollington, I will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I get access to trade prices on flights, hotels, holidays, trains, all sorts of other travel related purchases.
Speaker: I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club as well. And just like me, travel at trade prices.
Speaker: Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. And probably good enough to share with your friends, family and um work colleagues as well.
Speaker: As with every episode of The Independent Minds, We will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, Matt. Hi, Michael.
Speaker: How are you today? Well, I'm really good. Thank you very much. i Hope you can say the same. I am very well. Thank you. Yes. Can we start our discussion about this issue of HR and IT coordinating things with a bit of an introduction to your experiences and your career, please?
Speaker: Of course. So I've been working in IT since 1996. I've worked across all levels of IT support from answering the the phones to server support.
Speaker: And during that time, I have seen many occasions where there have been challenges with getting information from HR into IT t and then getting that relevant information into the new hires accounts and getting them the access that they need.
Speaker: Or you do surprise me. It's a common occurrence. From an IT perspective, why do you think there your experience problems? I think a lot of it is a lack of understanding between HR and between IT. this There's obviously ah people in completely different roles don't understand the other role at all. So you know they're they' they're trying to get one hand to talk to another hand, but those hands are entirely separate bodies.
Speaker: Yeah. Remembering starting work in HR departments. That's your desk there. And looking at it and thinking, there's nothing on it.
Speaker: There should be a computer with a keyboard and a mouse. What's the polite thing to do? Don't ruin your first day by complaining about anything. But what's the right thing to do?
Speaker: And then someone will say, Oh, we're just waiting for the computer to arrive. Is that right, Ben? Thinking and you think it's going to come just down the corridor from an IT department, but then we realize that arrive from the distributor. Well, you could be sitting there without a computer. And in today's sort of business environment, if you haven't got a computer, you don't really exist. Absolutely. And then, of course, there's there's the challenges. you You turn up, you get your computer, and then someone says, well, we've got your computer, but we don't actually know
Speaker: what you're going to use to log into the computer. And then you log in and you don't actually have access to do the work you need to do, the work you're obviously being paid to do. Yeah. There's no email address on the computer. There's not not ah access to the files on a server that you would need to actually look at the documents that are going to bring you up to speed, all those sorts of things. It's not part of your induction or or anything. And I'm thinking that if this has been a problem for employees and employers, HR departments, IT departments, well, since computers were invented, I suppose.
Speaker: But with the changes in employment law in 2026 and the need to get people up to speed and to manage their performance more proactively than we might have done in the past, especially in those early days, so bit of honesty there people start probation periods and never really know whether they finish them because just the way they go but nowadays we're going to have to look at more proactively getting everything in place is one of those things that is going to be more important on your website mc-tech.uk you have a special section called the jml section which talks all about joiners movers and leavers so
Speaker: What is the service that you provide around joiners, movers and leavers? So for businesses that have HR solution, such as Abysseed, H2R, SuccessFactors, Workday, that process can be as simple as the HR colleague puts the new member of staff into that system and the account is so is automatically created for that colleague to log in with and is automatically given access.
Speaker: to all the systems that they they need, and they can be added to groups that assign software to them as well. So that it takes away all of the manual effort that's that's required from an IT department.
Speaker: For smaller businesses, it can be couple of SharePoint lists and a simple form to fill out. So they don't need necessarily IT to be involved. They don't need to know how everything works in the background, they just go in there, they put in names and job roles, departments, grades, all selected from drop-down lists, click a button, and the account again is created for that new colleague without any manual intervention.
Speaker: It all sounds great. What we're saying is that If you have the information about an employee, a new employee who's starting with the organization or someone who's moving around the organization from department to department or location to location, the fact that you know who that person is and you know what job they're going to be doing, you set it all up so that every job has its computer that is required to do that job, so the actual hardware.
Speaker: and also the software that is required to be on that computer for that job to be on happen. And then you can plan out the whole sort of process of making sure that that individual gets the right software on the right computer in the right place on the day that they need it. So they're not hanging around waiting for something and they can in a, in a way hit the road running, I think is the phrase, isn't it?
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. Perfect use of the phrase. It's absolutely the, they can get in on day one and they have the access to do their job. And of course with that, you can then also allocate, especially within Apposita H2R, all the training that they need to do in order to then be able to, because they hit the road running.
Speaker: Yeah. That's, that's the whole point. That's the whole, the whole plan is to make life as simple as possible for business leaders, for business owners and for IT departments.
Speaker: There's nothing, as tedious for IT departments is just rerunning the same processes again and again and again. And when it becomes tedious, it becomes boring. And when it becomes boring, it's not necessarily completed properly every time. So if we can take that out and take the mundane out and automate that, then those IT people can focus on, or obviously the business leaders can focus on the jobs that they actually want to do, the jobs that they enjoy and the tasks that they look forward to yes it's when something becomes mundane like you say it's not a big exciting thing people just cut the corners which means that you can end with a computer that hasn't got the right software and different versions of the software to everyone else in the department and i remember being in one organization and being given my computer because i just arrived and i had got the latest version of powerpoint but everyone else in the department i've got a previous version of powerpoint
Speaker: so when i was circulating presentations to people they just weren't appearing on their computers in the way that i had written and it sounds a simple error a simple sort of situation was it an error was it not an error where was the error no one knows all i know is that like I was working hard on presentations and then circulating them, but people not getting them. And then being the person who got the blame was me where there's actually, it's a problem with the IT.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And obviously it's the same, exactly the same for the creation of emails for for new starts and access to network drives or SharePoint sites or, you know, any of that sort of stuff that people need, especially this day and age of collaboration.
Speaker: people need all that access from day one. Yeah, a key word there is collaboration, isn't it? Collaboration, not necessarily just with the person who sits six feet away from you, but somebody who might be six or seven thousand miles away from you in the organisation. they don't actually need to be another employee. They could be an independent consultant who's working in the organisation as well.
Speaker: You've still got to make sure that they've got the right information, the right technology to make sure that they're integrated into the team and can collaborate effectively. Absolutely right.
Speaker: See, it's an eye-opening moment when you realise that we don't really have, in many organisations, a process that has been defined of what happens when someone joins the organisation.
Speaker: We can be very excited about them coming. They can be very excited. But, well, lots of organisations do not have the sort of process that you are talking about to make sure that that arrival and integration into the organisation works smoothly at all.
Speaker: No, and and, you know, a lot of the time when they do have something, it's just a a paper checklist for somebody to follow. And that's, again, it's it becomes mundane and people start thinking that they're knowing exactly what they're doing.
Speaker: Stop following the checklist as closely when they've done it a few times and again, things get missed. The checklists and your paper-based induction orientation processes where people can say, yeah, I'll read it later. I'll sign it to say that I've read it and understood it, but I'll read it later. I'll do that bit later. Here's the form signed.
Speaker: There you go. That can go in the file. And yet the other thing, when you've got the system sorted, someone's going to do it on the computer you can actually force them to go through the process correctly actually show them what this policy means rather than just saying here it is read it and this whole issue of saying yes i signed to say that i have it i understood it but that was way back when So giving people something online, on the computer, that they have to do before they get to the next stage, actually, I think, leads to people being better educated about how to be successful within an organization.
Speaker: Yeah, I would agree completely. Using the technology to make the process smoother, as well as using the technology to make the process feasible. Yeah. There's so many things that could happen, I think,
Speaker: As HR professionals, we shared more information about who's coming, they're coming, and what the job involves with the people who've got to provide the services, the products and the services to make that person successful. Yes, I agree completely. A lot of it's about communication. It is is. Of course, the second stage of all of this is when people move from one department to the next or one location to the next and how things change when you're in a different location or different departments. And again, that's another thing that you say has to be covered by this strategy.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely. The number of times I've looked at user accounts within a business and they've moved from payroll to IT or some other strange transient move from one department to another.
Speaker: And you look at their account and they still have access to data that they shouldn't. You know, someone's I say move from payroll to IT, but no one's ever cleaned up their access to the payroll data.
Speaker: um they They shouldn't have access to that. Now, that's that's a ah ah security risk because that's not their role anymore. but So with a a proper mover strategy as well, when their job role changes, their access is automatically changed. They're removed from all the groups that they shouldn't be in.
Speaker: distribution lists, everything else, and added to the new ones that they should be in. And at that point, everything's clean. You should use security is better. And they only have access to to the relevant information for their role.
Speaker: Yeah. The information that they need in order to do their job successfully is what should be the priority, not just giving people information or allowing them to maintain access to information that is no longer relevant to the role that they pursue they perform.
Speaker: and she's As you're saying that there, I remember, yes, people move from one department to the next and they should lose the access for the from the first department and gain the access from the second department.
Speaker: That makes sense. But I've also had experience of where computers have been returned to the IT department after someone has left and then they're reallocated to someone else and part of this strategy has to be about what happens to that computer to make sure that it is clean as well. You don't end up with someone having access to something that they don't need, don't want and might actually be more serious than than that.
Speaker: working in an IT company was given a computer which had been used by somebody else previously and they were designing microchips but the computer I was given had all the plans for the microchips on something I didn't need didn't use it was only when it went back in have an upgrade that they told me that I'd got all of this information on the computer as a low I had no idea it was there didn't know and anything about it at all but moving around the world with that information was a security risk for the organization and theoretically shouldn't have been information that was removed from the United Kingdom so you know some very serious consequences Wow those types of situations absolutely me know that that's obviously something that should never happen in
Speaker: with the right software solutions in the background and products such as Thintune, that it can easily be avoided with and the reassignment of a computer to to another colleague. The first thing that happens when that colleague logs on is that computer gets reset and all data that's on there that's not specifically for the operating system or the applications is removed.
Speaker: Yes. We have to be increasingly proactive about the security of information but the security of hardware as well. I'm often being told that the weakest link in most organizations' security, IT t security, is the people.
Speaker: People leaving computers on, people using computers in inappropriate places, public Wi-Fi, all these sorts of things. But a large reason for, well, one of the main reasons for that is that people haven't planned out and set the rules for how people should be using computers, how people should be even using mobile phones.
Speaker: it's it's Organizations need to have more, put more thought into how they want their their technology to be used. Oh, definitely. Definitely. that this It's a common occurrence. Again, but as you say, people using mobile phones on on in locations where they shouldn't be um or using them for for functions that they shouldn't um you know ah whatever it is, one second they're browsing their Facebook, the next second they're browsing work things on ah on an open wireless network and someone out there is know hacking into their phone or hacking the information over that wireless network and is watching everything that's going on.
Speaker: And that ah that then becomes a ah risk for social engineering where somebody you know calls up a company pretending to be an employee or a former employee and starts trying to engineer getting information or getting access. It's a much more complex issue, isn't it, than just a simple, well, much more complex issue than just how a computer or how a computer is allocated. It's how it's used, and it is not just used by the organisation, but used by the employee as well.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Because the the third part of this this work that you do is about what happens when leavers, when someone leaves an organisation, what happens? to their technology.
Speaker: And yeah I've worked in organisations where, yep, okay, you're leaving, but yeah, you're going home now, and you can take your computer with you just to get it back to us when you've taken your personal things off it, right? so Or other organisations where people were taken into a room and told, unfortunately, your job no longer exists, and so we're we've got to make you redundant.
Speaker: and by the time they get back to their at desk the computer has either physically been removed or it's been completely switched off and there's no longer any access into anything. You've got somewhere in between the sweet spot which means that you treat your employee now, former employee with respect but you're also respecting the need for confidentiality and security within the IT systems as well. But it's something that needs to be thought through before the event actually happens. And of course, with remote employees as well, you've got to think about what's going to happen with those people.
Speaker: Definitely. um But from the specifically from the the join and move leave processes that I look at, It's around making sure that those accounts, once someone has left, ah are dealt with or are handled in the right way so that their access is removed, the account is disabled, and after it a relevant period of time, the account is deleted. And all of this is automatically done rather than waiting for someone in IT to remember or someone in HR to say, it's now time to do this with this account.
Speaker: The number of times, again, I've seen in businesses where there have been accounts for people who've left. And that account sometimes is enabled for years.
Speaker: So it's it's not even in a disabled state. um Or sometimes they're disabled and then they're just ignored. um And even in a disabled state, that account could still be taking a license, which costs obviously that business money.
Speaker: In an enabled state, it could be, they're called bad actors. So a social engineer's dream, because if if a social engineer no contacts a company says, oh, I am such and such an employee, I need my account password resetting, please. And they manage to have enough information that they can persuade that potentially very busy IT department to do that.
Speaker: If that is a current employee, you would hope that within a short reasonably short period of time, they would notice that they no longer have access to their account and they would be contacting IT and they would saying, i I've lost access to my account and their password could be reset again and it would be investigated how their password re reset the first time.
Speaker: If this is a former employee, that social engineer could have access to that account for months or years. without anybody noticing that they shouldn't, um which is ah a major security risk for any business. Because in that period of time, that that person could have gained access to all sorts of data. They could have elevated their privileges. They could they could have done anything, really, if they are technical enough to do so, which obviously a lot of them are.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. I'm thinking, is this more of a problem in bigger organisations or is it something that is a big issue for smaller employers?
Speaker: Where do see it happening most? I think it's ah it's a big issue for all employers. um You know, a lot of the small employers, they'll have, obviously they'll know exactly who all their staff are, but if they don't have dedicated IT,
Speaker: or don't want to spend a period of time without an IT contract with ah with a service provider, then they could get themselves into a muddle with people who've left and not clearing out the accounts and spending money on licenses that they don't need to spend money on.
Speaker: um With big companies, I've worked with companies with ah tens of thousands of colleagues across the UK, and they've had hundreds of accounts for levers that are still enabled or that have been disabled but they've still sat there years afterwards and that then becomes a big issue for deployment of new solutions if you have a project to deploy a new solution and you can't say yes our colleague base is absolutely 100 accurate on the number of colleagues we have on the access that these colleagues have on the information we have for them then that project is going to run longer
Speaker: because that data to deliver a project potentially has to be cleaned up. And obviously the the project running longer is going to ultimately cost the business more money, as well as providing the security risk for the social engineering. Yeah.
Speaker: So what we're saying, I suppose, then, is that the absence of these strategies for joiners, movers, and leavers has financial implication because you can be using the wrong licenses or just have licenses that you're paying for without actually having someone using them.
Speaker: There is the security issue as well, in that you have people with the wrong access to the wrong types of software and the wrong types of data. So it's not relevant to them, it's not relevant to their job, and it's not relevant to them at all once they've left the organization.
Speaker: And then there's also the HR side of things where you have an employee who hasn't got the tools they need to do their job, which sort of like builds resentment and it and is never really forgotten I think. I turned upon the first day they didn't have the software for me.
Speaker: They promoted me. I went through the whole rigmarole of moving locations, moving the family, turned upon the first day and the software that I needed wasn't on the computer. in It just never gets forgotten. So there's a whole range of different issues that could be the result of not simply thinking about these things in advance before they happen and having a strategy in place with all of the different connections to make it as straightforward, as simple as possible to actually implement.
Speaker: Yeah, precisely. And that's, you know, that's the the basis of what i I do. That's the basis of of what I enjoy is taking all that information and making all these automated solutions or as automated as they possibly can be so that everybody through will every part of their journey within a business has all the relevant access.
Speaker: yeah And when they leave, then that access is revoked and the business can be sure that they their security risks are as minimal as possible.
Speaker: That sounds great. Matthew, you it has been really interesting. Thank you very much for your time. No problem at all. I look forward to sorting it all out. Thank you. Thanks very much, Michael. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Matt Chapman, the founder of mc-tech.uk.
Speaker: You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. Now, We talked about computer health, but we also need to talk about your health, the individual's health. One of the best ways to stay healthy is to understand the risks that you face, much as you need to face with the safety of your computers. Knowing the risks early is an important part of staying healthy. And that is why we recommend the health tests available from York Test, especially the annual health test.
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Speaker: Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
