Contract Employees and Account Management

If your company hires contract employees, outside workers, or employees who work for a limited amount of time, you know all too well that managing these types of accounts can be a headache! With these types of accounts, there is constant movement and employees of this type need to be quickly added but then also promptly removed when they are no longer working for your company.

In addition, since contract employees are often only working for a short period of time, they need to have their accounts quickly created so that they can start performing their jobs. Unlike other employees, they cannot be waiting around for days for all their accounts to be created and access appropriate applications. Employees who are brought in during the hectic holiday season especially need to have access quickly so they can begin working. The issue though, is that in a large organization this could process could take up to a few days.

Due to the high turnover rate of these types of employees, IT also needs to ensure that their accounts are properly disabled once they leave the company. More times than not this task is over looked since someone has to go into each application and manually disable the user, which is time consuming. This is an extreme security risk since these ex- employees will still have access to the company’s data and network. There have been many cases where disgruntled employees either reap havoc on their ex employers network, or steal important customer data. Dealing with the headache of contract employees accounts, is an issue that organizations of all sizes face.

Many leading organizations have solved this issue using Active Directory management software. The following is how they have used this type of solution to solve the account management issue of contract employees:

 Provisioning Accounts
An AD Management solution allows the organization to automate the account management process and not have to manually perform tasks such as creating and disabling accounts. By connecting with your company’s HR system, any change that is made in that system is automatically synchronized to all connected applications.

 So, when someone enters a new personnel request the solution can automatically create new accounts in any connected system or applications, create a share drive, personal drive, profile, set up a phone, or many other tasks for new hires. The manager in charge then receives an audit trail of all actions and can continue to request additional services needed, such as hardware or mobile devices. This allows contract employees to receive access to all of the resources they need quickly so that they can begin work on their first day of employment.

 Disabling Former Employees
To handle the issue of disabling former employees, an AD management solution can assist with automatically disabling accounts. Once an employee is disabled in the source system, the software automatically disables their AD and all connected accounts to ensure the employee no longer has access. It also has the ability to transfer that employee’s personal drive to their manager. This ensures that any projects that were in the works are not lost.

In addition, a set expiration can be placed on an account. This allows the organization to ensure that an account is automatically disabled on a certain day, so that no action has to be taken at all.

Many organizations around the world deal with managing accounts for contract employees. Often they do not realize that there is a simple solution which many of their counterpart’s use, which can reduce the headache, allow employees to be more productive, and increase overall security. “An AD account management solution has not only helped improve the security of access by terminating faster, it has also greatly improved our data security,” said Dan Backer, Director, Campus Technology, at National Geographic.


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