Lifecycle Management

  • 5 min read

Managing Offboarding During Mass Layoffs: Best Practices For IT Teams

Rohit Rao

13th April, 2023

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Mass layoffs require a quick and efficient offboarding process to protect sensitive data and assets, and app access is revoked promptly. 

Following best practices like automated deprovisioning will ensure that you leave no room for security breaches or data leakage while the work is done faster. 

Offboarding employees becomes quite a task during mass layoffs. This is because it comes with tight timelines, making it challenging for you to revoke access for many employees from different job roles or departments on time.

Along with that, you also need to maintain data backup of all such employees to prevent any data loss. 

Hence, data security during offboarding is necessary, particularly when dealing with sensitive information such as financial records or client data. It can help safeguard the company's assets and ensure that sensitive data does not fall into the wrong hands.

That's why having a well-planned offboarding process is of utmost importance, as it can minimize the time and effort you spend and reduce chances for errors.

Here are some strategies you can follow to offboard employees even during mass layoffs.

Let's dive in and find out!

4 Best Offboarding Practices to Follow During Mass Layoffs

Let's explore the best practices for managing offboarding during mass layoffs. 

1. Securely Transfer Employee Data Before Revoking Access

One of the best practices for managing efficient offboarding is to securely transfer employee data before revoking their access to the organization's SaaS apps and other resources. 

Why so?

• It ensures that sensitive company data is protected and not at risk of being accessed or used improperly by former employees.

• By transferring ex-employee data, organizations can facilitate a smooth transition and ensure new employees have access to everything they need. 

In short, it is a critical step that can help organizations protect sensitive data, facilitate a smooth transition, and reduce errors. Thus, companies must prioritize this best practice to ensure a successful offboarding process.

So, how do you do it? What's the solution? 

Zluri is a powerful SaaS management platform that streamlines the offboarding process. For example, when employees leave, Zluri revokes their access to all devices, apps, and systems to prevent unauthorized access. But that's not all—Zluri takes it a step further by backing up the departing employee's data and transferring it to a new owner. This means that potential data is never lost in the shuffle. 

If you want to get a quick brief about how Zluri deprovisions a user, refer to the below image:

With Zluri, you can rest assured that your organization's data is secure and that offboarding is handled with utmost care. Trust Zluri for a seamless offboarding experience without taking chances with your sensitive data.

2. Integrate Your HR & IT Systems for Automated Workflow

Integrating the HR system with the IT is one of the most crucial strategies that you can use to ensure efficient de-provisioning during mass layoffs. In addition, you can improve accuracy and efficiency by ensuring data sharing between the two departments. 

When HR and IT departments work in silos, it can create communication gaps, delays, and errors during offboarding. HR may not be aware of all the systems and applications an employee has access to, while IT may need the necessary information to revoke access in a timely manner.

Hence, bringing HR and IT departments under one umbrella can significantly improve the offboarding process by ensuring proper access revocation.

Zluri integrates HR and IT together for proper offboarding 

Zluri can integrate with the current HR systems to assist IT teams run more efficiently. You can quickly connect to platforms like BreatheHR, Bamboo HR, Zoho Recruit, and others with Zluri. Furthermore, within the firm, these systems can offer information such as offboarding specifics, no. of apps, personnel data, etc.

In this way, it ensures that employee offboarding is handled in an efficient and secure manner. This can save time, improve data security, and protect the company's reputation during mass layoffs.

3. Maintain a System-of-Record of Apps for Proper Access Revocation

Maintaining a system of record of your SaaS applications is essential for proper access revocation during offboarding. It provides a centralized and accurate record of all systems, applications, and data accessed by the departing employee. 

Hence, it is a critical component of an effective offboarding process. 

The system of record helps reduce the risk of errors or oversights during the offboarding process by providing a clear and comprehensive view of the departing employee's access rights. In addition, it ensures that all access is properly revoked and that no sensitive data is left accessible to former employees.  

Many organizations maintain an inventory on Excel sheets for all the SaaS subscriptions used in the organization. But this way of maintaining an inventory on an Excel sheet or through any other manual method can take time and effort. 

Since every time someone leaves the company, or any new employee joins, you need to update the apps and license details every time. Not only do these sheets consume much time, but they also harbor numerous errors. Plus, managing access permissions and performing certain tasks is not feasible.

So, is there any solution that can help you?

Yes, Zluri's Lifecycle Management centralized portal is the perfect solution for keeping track of all your organization's SaaS licenses. With the help of its onboarding and offboarding workflow, it allows you to effortlessly grant and revoke access whenever a new employee joins or an ex-employee departs. 

Zluri enables you to revoke access while offboarding and assists you in gaining visibility into all the apps. This lessens the strain on IT teams and guarantees the privacy of the organization's data. With Zluri, the entire process becomes a breeze!

4. Automate The Offboarding Process To Make It Smooth And Efficient

Offboarding is a complex process that involves multiple departments, including HRs, IT teams, and others, all of which must work collaboratively. To streamline this process, automation can be incredibly beneficial. 

Automated offboarding procedures can help protect sensitive information by ensuring that access to systems and data is revoked promptly and consistently. It eliminates the need for manual intervention, streamlining the entire process and saving time and effort. 

Further, it ensures that all necessary steps are followed, ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

How does Zluri help here?

Zluri offers an advanced offboarding automation tool that enables a smooth transition of responsibilities and information.

Using Zluri's offboarding automation process saves significant time and reduces the effort required to complete the offboarding process. In addition to improving efficiency, Zluri helps prevent security breaches that may occur when former employees continue to access company resources. 

With Zluri, you can ensure a secure and streamlined offboarding process for all employees leaving your organization.

Streamline Offboarding with Zluri - An Automated User Lifecycle Management Platform

Say goodbye to the hassle and stress of offboarding with Zluri! Our advanced automated offboarding solution is the trusted choice for IT teams to streamline the offboarding process and ensure a secure transition for your departing employees. From saving time and effort to preventing security breaches, Zluri does it all!

Curious to know how Zluri manages to make offboarding a breeze? 

Let's dive into the details and uncover how Zluri does this!

Zluri isn't just an offboarding tool - it's your ultimate solution for secure data backup and transfer. With Zluri‌, all your crucial data is backed up and ready for reference anytime. Plus, it allows you to transfer ownership of ongoing SaaS app licenses or data, making the transition for the next employee a breeze.

Zluri offers cloud directory integrations, allowing you to store, use, and share data easily. With a secure offboarding procedure in place, you can effectively restrict app usage and safeguard your organization against potential data breaches.

Zluri goes beyond SSO-level authorization when it comes to deprovisioning. It keeps track of the SSO system's usage, including monitoring user access to applications by examining the extent of access each user has to these applications and their sign-in records, audit records, and access logs.

Since all the data has already been transferred, Zluri returns to the application and deletes the user. Finally, it also removes the SSO.

In addition, Zluri will notify you if ex-employees still have access to any applications or data within the organization.

Now, let's explore how you can set up an offboarding workflow!

• Access the Workflows module on Zluri's platform, which offers two options: onboarding and offboarding.

• Select offboarding, and then click on the "New Workflow" option to create an offboarding workflow for departing employees.

• Choose the user(s) you wish to offboard. You can select multiple users at the time of offboarding.

• Since Zluri is integrated into your HRMS, it can fetch all the employee data, and you can offboard the selected users in just one click.

• Further, you can use the pre-saved workflows, known as "playbooks", to provide a seamless and stress-free experience.

With Zluri, you can trust that your offboarding process will be streamlined, efficient, and compliant. 

So why settle for a stressful offboarding experience when you can have the trusted solution with Zluri? Try it today by scheduling a demo and seeing the difference for your organization.

About the author

Rohit Rao

Rohit works in the Community and Marketing Team of Zluri and is a strong advocate of community led growth.