Curb Employee Turnover, Reduce Security ProblemsCurb Employee Turnover, Reduce Security Problems

Creating a positive work environment that keeps employees engaged and feeling good about a company is a smart security move.

If an employee receives secure access to an organization's data, including employee, customer, vendor, and government agency records, what happens when he or she leaves? Is the organization still secure? That is a big question every company must address as it defines and refines its security posture.

Employee Turnover
In a 2013 Forbes article, "'I'm Outta Here!' Why 2 Million Americans Quit Every Month (And 5 Steps to Turn the Epidemic Around)," Alan Hall, founder of Grow America, demonstrated that an organization's staff turns over with some frequency. This can lead to a host of security problems for any organization an employee abandons.

Hall cited an Accenture report showing that 31% of surveyed employees did not like their bosses and did not feel empowered, while 35% expressed dissatisfaction because of internal politics and 43% due to a lack of recognition.

Some employees who leave their jobs when they are unhappy with their companies can be malicious or negligent about their security knowledge, data, and access.

Security Concerns Can Be Financial
This is a considerable concern. In its "Global Economic Crime Survey 2016" report, PwC wrote: "Despite this evolving threat, we have seen a decrease in the detection of criminal activity by methods within management's control, with detection through corporate controls down by 7%." In addition, PwC's findings show that "one in five organizations (22%) have not carried out a single fraud risk assessment in the last 24 months."

In the report, PwC looked at this finding in the context of its 19th Annual Global CEO Survey, in which it said two-thirds of chief executives agreed their companies face more threats to growth than ever before. "...this points to a potentially worrying trend: that too much is being left to chance. In fact, our findings indicate that one in ten economic crimes are discovered by accident," PwC continued.

Security Vulnerabilities and Recommendations
PwC, in conjunction with CSO magazine, the CERT division of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and the U.S. Secret Service, also produced the 2014 "US State of Cybercrime Security" report. The report included these recommendations:

Source: "US cybercrime: Rising risks reduced readiness, Key findings from the 2014 US State of Cybercrime Survey" report

Better Management Solutions
Reducing employee turnover should increase productivity and reduce costs while improving an organization's reputation. Five management actions can reduce turnover -- as well as cut down on security vulnerabilities. These good business practices are: