Addressing IT Challenges in High Turnover Industries

Many industries must contend with high staff turnover rates. This is a particular challenge for organizations where employees can (and often do) leave to join a competitor, such as mortgage firms, insurance companies and business process outsourcers (BPOs).

Turnover doesn’t just create a problem for HR, it also leads to IT challenges that have an equally negative impact on a business’s bottom line. While organizations can take steps to decrease employee turnover, a certain amount of churn in these competitive industries will likely always be a part of doing business. IT teams within these organizations need to look for solutions to address and mitigate the impact caused by high turnover.

Challenge 1: Extensive Provisioning Time

One of the most basic IT problems caused by high employee turnover is the sheer amount of time and resources IT teams must spend provisioning desktops for new workers. The exiting employees are often replaced by fresh faces and every time this happens IT has to get that new employee’s computer outfitted with the proper applications, access, security and data. While desktops are the foundation of an organization, IT’s time could be better spent focusing on business optimizations and other initiatives that will move the company as a whole forward.

On the employee side, the longer the provisioning process takes (either because IT only has so much time to dedicate to the process or because there’s a “waiting list” of other new employees ahead of them), the longer time to productivity and time to revenue takes.

The Solution: A fast, repeatable process that doesn’t require an extensive amount of work to set up a new individual. Desktops for new employees should be produced off a pre-approved master image to ensure consistency and limit the time individual customizations would require.

Challenge 2: Protecting Corporate Data

One of the biggest concerns with employees leaving for a competitor isn’t backfilling their position, but worrying that they’ll take corporate data with them and try to steal away clients or potential deals. While company policy almost certainly prohibits these actions, policies do little to physically prevent data theft. Addressing this concern can be even more costly for companies if it’s deemed such a concern that the organization staffs in-house legal counsel to address incidents.

The Solution: Implement user-level controls and security measures that prohibit the ability to download client lists. These controls should also extend to controls around screen capture and external saving – either to a thumb drive or a cloud app.

Challenge 3: Maintaining Usable Hardware

Many organizations provide employees with a company-issued computer. This allows the organization to implement its chosen security and control features and ensure compatibility with required applications. However, in agent (or broker)-based industries where individuals may work remote or be located in different offices across the country, getting those devices back in good working condition can be challenging. Some organizations report an equipment return rate of 60% – 65%, while other companies see even less than that.

In many instances, it’s IT trying to get this equipment back and when it is returned they must spend time checking its condition, wiping and updating it, and provisioning it for the next user. If equipment isn’t returned, or is returned in poor condition, it needs to be replaced, costing both budget and time.

The Solution: Implement a “bring your own device” (BYOD) policy. Even if the organization provides peripherals (like a headset), it is a much smaller lift and cost.

Making the Solutions Work

So how exactly do you increase security and controls while letting employees use their own personal devices without adding a lot of provisioning time to IT’s to-do list?

Dizzion can help you with that.