One of the worst situations that you can be in is acrimonious separation of an IT person from an organisation.

A bad separation, just like a bad divorce can have significant impact.

Large organisations have systems, policies, procedures and processes in place that protect the organisation, when they are used of course.   If followed they protect the organisation well.

SME’s on the other hand have different problems.

We have come across smaller organisation that still have old staff members on the books with full administrator access to everything that is still being done in the organisation.

The problems this creates can be huge.

They have access to privileged accounts.   Accounts that can do anything on the organisations digital world.

Just a few ideas of what they can do!

• They can steal your trade secrets and take them / sell them to your opposition.
• They can steal your client list and use them for a number of bad things – competition, blackmail, sabotage.
• They can cause software issues, lock outs and shut downs
• They can lock legitimate users / all users out of the organisation.

Another problem!

In most cases the IT person is there because they know computers.   They were allocated the role when they joined and you may even have paid for some education and training packages to make them better.

This just puts them in the position of holding the keys to the kingdom.

If you are going to remove an IT person from your organisation, the best thing you can do is outsource your IT, for a short time or indefinately.   They have the expertice to protect your organisation and they are under contract to ensure your systems are safe.