Congratulations! You’re hiring! Things are looking up, and you need more people to do that thing you do. Now you have a brand spanking new remote team, scattered throughout the lower 48 zip codes, and they’re raring to go.
So, where’s that IT kit you ordered for each of them? Still on the container ship? Probably. And, are you expecting Kim and Aleesha in IT to unwrap, provision, and send out each device to each team member in, like, a couple of days? None of this will happen if you haven't signed up for onboarding automation.
Why Setting up Your Newbies Is Slower Than You Think
Getting your people set up with the proper services on the right devices in the right place can be a problem, even in a world that isn’t messed up. Supply chains have always been a bit sticky, but they’re almost comatose right now. You don’t want to settle for lower quality devices just because that’s what’s on the shelf right now. That’ll come home to roost on your butt later on.
And even if you’ve managed to get your paws on a fleet of top-spec shiny devices, it’s going to take time before Kim and Aleesha receive, unbox, check, customize, provision, and arrange re-delivery of said shiny devices. Maybe Kim and/or Aleesha are out sick, which delays the whole thing further. And, in the meantime, your new people are twiddling their thumbs and wondering why they accepted the job.
Cheer up, because automated onboarding is a thing, and surprise surprise, it speeds up your onboarding process. It does this by dramatically closing the time gap between when your supplier sends out your device and when your employee gets down to actual real proper work on it.
How Onboarding Automation Works
Onboarding automation centers on one of two processes, or sometimes both, depending on the mix of your fleet. Zero-touch onboarding is generally used for wholly-owned corporate devices, and Conditional Access for personal devices that are used for work purposes.
Zero Touch Onboarding
Zero-touch onboarding is a bit of a lie invented by the marketing department, because someone does have to actually touch the device; however, rejoice! because it’s not going to be your IT guy or gal. Here’s how zero-touch onboarding works:
- The new device is sent straight from the supplier (Apple, Dell, Lenovo, etc.) to your new hire, bypassing your IT people altogether. Thank goodness!
- Your new hire opens up their gift, basks in the new-computer smell for a minute, boots it up, and connects to their wifi. As if by magic, the device asks Apple or Microsoft who its new mommy is, and Apple or Microsoft break the news that your company is its new mommy.
- This allows your device to say “MAMA!” to your remote management server. Now—here’s the clever bit—your IT consultant has preconfigured the remote management server to ask your new hire for their email credentials, and it uses those to create an account. Your IT people don’t need to preconfigure anything.
- When your new person creates their account, they’ll open up their desktop. Here’s where they’ll freak out (in the best way) at the stuff that automatically starts installing: a catalog of all the applications they need for their role; all the security settings your company needs for its compliance regimes; the welcome emails; the team meetings scheduled in their calendar; everything they need to get cracking right away.
You might want to inform your new hire that steps two to four take only about ten minutes, so they won’t be able to bake a batch of celebratory peanut butter cookies while they’re waiting. But they might make themselves a decent latte to power up for their first day of work, which starts… now!
Conditional Access
This is the second method of onboarding automation, and you’ll sometimes see it called Context Aware Access. It’s more versatile and secure for mobile workforces, but can be slightly slower for the newbie. It blocks or grants access to data or apps based on pre-configured criteria, and allows your new person to be productive on their personal device, while keeping company data secure.
Here’s what happens:
- Your new person tries to access your organization’s Google or Microsoft account on their personal computer or mobile device. Uh-oh! They’ll hit a gatekeeper such as a single-sign-on identity provider.
- Their device has to show that it is authorized to access the applications and data to which it’s trying to connect. First time around, it’s going to fail this check, because it’s owned by your employee and your IT department is naturally paranoid of unrecognized devices, as they should be.
- Your employee will be prompted to install MDM, which will encrypt the device, make sure the operating system is up to the latest patches, check the password complexity, and all the things your compliance auditor cares about.
- Once the device is compliant and secure, your new person will be granted access to what they came looking for, which means they can get on with the job.
The Top Three Onboarding Automation Benefits
Smooth onboarding isn’t the only benefit you’ll enjoy. These enrollment methods allow your IT people to corral your entire fleet: to get it visible, controlled, tracked, secured, and configured according to your standards and provisioned with the apps required. It’s kind of a biggy. Here are some more onboarding automation benefits:
1.Provides Security, and Lots of It
Both methods double down on data security in a dazzling display of different methodologies, for instance, by:
- Ensuring devices are encrypted.
- Reducing human error e.g., through single-sign-on.
- Storing encryption recovery keys so you’ll still have access to the data if an employee forgets their password.
- Enforcing passcodes and OS updates.
- Controlling access through role or permission-based configuration.
- Enabling speedy and secure remote formatting if the device gets lost of stolen.
And, because automated onboarding supports security, it supports compliance. This is super-useful if you’re aiming for SOC 2, SEC, FINRA, or jumping through any other compliance hoops.
2. Cultivates Happy IT People
Onboarding automation frees up your IT team for more fun/productive/strategic tasks than fiddling around with devices.
3. Makes Your New Hires Adore You
Giving your new hires a streamlined, worry-free first day will make them love you, at least until their first meal at the company cafeteria. Having all their tools and data available in the first half hour of their first morning makes you, as an employer, look like a total boss, because you are one.
We rave about the benefits of onboarding automation because we know how much it helps our clients. We love to see their faces light up when they see how easy it is to hire and enable people, anywhere in the world, securely and quickly.
If you’re hiring, let’s chat about all the onboarding automation benefits. We’re here to help.