Effective IT offboarding starts with effective IT onboarding: the symmetry of the processes.

Onboarding new employees is often the most well-structured HR process, as it directly impacts performance and retention. Yet, for 57% of employees, a computer or software access is still missing on their first day. This disorganization in IT onboarding creates a cascade of issues, inevitably turning IT offboarding into a nightmare for the IT department.

Hiring a new employee represents a significant investment (between €3,000 and €10,000, according to Payfit). Despite this, the experience during the first few days is often less than ideal: scrambling to set up employee software access, attending training sessions without access to the tools, and so on.

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"New hires who have gone through a comprehensive onboarding process are 58% more likely to stay with the company for at least three years." (Source: Officevibe)

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1. The Paradox of IT Onboarding: A Handcrafted Process

The preparation of hardware and software resources—known as IT onboarding—is rarely, if ever, integrated into the overall onboarding process.IT onboarding often boils down to a few items on a checklist (“Set up the workstation”), but from an IT perspective, the process remains ad hoc, highly manual, and requires tedious coordination between HR, the manager, IT, and General Services.

Is your IT onboarding process efficient?

The answer lies in the employee’s departure: when an employee leaves, am I notified in a timely manner, and do I have a clear understanding of which hardware needs to be recovered and which software accounts need to be closed and deprovisioned?

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IT offboarding is the bane of CIOs’ existence for the following reasons:

• Last-minute notice: They are notified at the very last moment (or even after departure).
• Information hunt: They have to spend hours investigating to find out what the employee had access to, beyond just SSO.
• Business continuity: They must follow up with the manager to set up email forwarding, file access, and the transfer of opportunities in the CRM.

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From a security perspective, even if the IT department has implemented SSO, it can deactivate the user, but the challenge remains: what about revoking access to these software applications and all other access points not managed via SSO but administered by other departments within the company?

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2. Why Structuring IT Onboarding Is Essential for IT Offboarding

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To ensure thatIT offboarding runs smoothly,the IT onboarding process must first be properly structured. The process for preparing resources mirrors the process for de-assigning them.

The lack of data centralization

DuringIT onboarding, critical information obtained from HR and managers is rarely centralized:

• Date of hire, department, job title, reporting line (information from the HRIS).
• Hardware resources (PC or Mac laptop? Additional monitor) and software resources (mailing lists, access to specific software, permissions). This often involves more than 20 resources per employee.
• Identification of internal administrators (IT or business units) responsible for managing each software application.

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The cost of data fragmentation

Since this information is not centralized forIT onboarding, it is impossible to view in one place what has been assigned to facilitateIT offboarding. The IT department must review all communications ( HRIS notifications, emails, forms, and various support tickets) that took place upon the employee’s start date and throughout their tenure.

This is a tedious task and often leads to oversights, which explains why, months after an employee leaves, software access or licenses are still found to be assigned (unused licenses). Although SSO has been disabled, deprovisioning or other unmanaged employee software access has not been revoked, leaving gaping security holes.

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3. Enhance Your IT Onboarding with Pyla: The 360° Software 

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Pyla is the solution for streamlining yourITonboarding andoffboarding processes in a consistent and automated way.

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Pyla is a collaborative B2B logistics management software solution that integrates with your HRIS systems to streamline coordination between HR, managers, IT, and General Services:

• Full centralization: It centralizes all of the company’s software and hardware and provides a detailed inventory— who has what —along with an up-to-date list of administrators for each resource.
• Profile-based mapping: This feature allows you to define profiles (Role/Department) to automate the assignment (IT onboarding) and de-assignment (IT offboarding) of resources.
• Automated Workflow: Whenever an employee enters, exits, or updates their mobility status, Pyla automatically sends alerts and reminders to each resource administrator (IT and business units) along with a detailed list of tasks.

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IT offboarding is thus centralized and managed through a single platform, ensuring that the preparation of hardware and software resources is tracked from start to finish.

A smooth transition for employees is just as important as a good start. Formalizing theIT onboarding and offboarding process is an investment that mitigates security and legal risks and ensures a positive employee experience.

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