Breakups can be tough, whether you're ending a romantic relationship or dismissing an employee at your business. Just as a spurned lover can turn malevolent, so can a terminated worker decide to get revenge against you or abuse his privileged access to your company for his own gain. It's possible to follow all the right procedures to ensure a smooth exit and still not get one -- in which case, you'll be glad you were aware of these smart measures to protect your enterprise.
Change the Locks
Changing the locks is always a wise action, even when the employee termination seems amicable. Keep in mind that even if a terminated employee hands over the key to that high-security facility, you can't know whether he made an illegal copy of that key without your knowledge. Call a professional locksmith to ascertain the cost of changing the locks (or adding secondary locks) to certain critical doors. You don't want that angry former worker finding his way back to these rooms and stealing or destroying valuable equipment, inventory and information.
Some commercial lock services can also change, augment or modify electronic locks such as keycard systems. One great advantage of electronic locks is the fact that changing access is as easy as reprogramming the system. Don't forget to have a locksmith, like Suburban Lock, or security company change other physical access controls such as parking lot gates or barriers to other outdoor facilities.
Protect Your Data
In this era of remote data access and cloud computing, barring an employee from your data center doesn't necessarily end the threat to the data itself. If an employee enjoys permissions to any higher levels of data security, you need to rescind those permissions immediately upon termination. If your employee's motives are already suspect, you may even want to make this move in advance of termination, since many malicious data breaches and abuses occur up to 30 days before an unhappy employee officially exits a workplace. Changing system passwords is the virtual equivalent of changing the locks on your door -- and the sensitive data it protects may be more critical to your future commercial survival than any amount of physical vandalism or burglary.
Passwords may not be the top-secret thing you meant them to be, either because they're too easy to figure out or because your disgruntled employee did some snooping to obtain them from coworkers. Give serious thought to changing all your passwords, not just the ones your employee was supposed to know, replacing them with genuinely complex combinations of letters and numbers instead of lazy temporary passwords such as "123456" (which are still amazingly common choices).
Beef Up Your Insurance
Are you properly insured against the possible actions of a disgruntled worker? If you've always enjoyed a relaxed "family" atmosphere at your workplace, you may have purchased run-of-the-mill general liability and commercial property insurance without worrying too much about the damage an angry insider might do to the business. But as your company grows and you take on more employees, you need to take a proactive attitude against that possibility -- starting with a review of your insurance coverage. If you don't already have criminal liability insurance, for instance, you'll want to add this type of coverage to protect you against criminal damages caused by employees. (This coverage includes criminal acts against your valued customers, a form of sabotage that might otherwise derail your business for good.)
If you're just starting a new business and you're looking to insure it against every possible eventuality, ask your agent about rolling criminal liability and other forms of commercial insurance into a single Business Owners Package, or BOP. This kind of package deal can be simpler and more affordable to maintain and update than a pile of separate policies from multiple providers. It may also be easier to scan at a glance and make sure that you have no critical gaps in your coverage that might leave you vulnerable to an action perpetrated by destructive former employee.
Some intelligent foresight and the ability to spring into action quickly can help you keep your business secure against unstable employees who are on their way or have already been terminated. The extra effort is more than worth it when you realize that you're doing your part to keep both your organization and its valued personnel as safe as possible.
