5 IT Policies Your Company Needs to Put Into Effect Today

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As a business owner, you have a central role in your organization’s daily operations (including IT policies) to enhance its stability and growth. You create a vision, set goals, and define expansion opportunities. You also hire employees, partner with product suppliers and service vendors, and develop ties with customers.

These relationships are vital and rewarding, but they expose your business to a variety of risks. You face some level of liability every day. It’s critical to create policies and put them in writing to guide your employee’s decision-making and mitigate risks.

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What Are IT Policies?

IT Policies are guidelines that describe how an organization plans to tackle various eventualities. They communicate the vision and values of a business and inform workers what to do in certain circumstances.

Formal policies instruct employees on how to conduct themselves at work right from the onboarding stage. The staff can tackle problems proactively without a need for micromanaging. Policies smoothen business operations and save time and stress for management.

Relevant IT Policies for Your Company

IT audits find many businesses having ineffective, outdated, or no IT-related policies at all. The reason is usually the lack of a team dedicated to developing and enhancing procedures. 

The right policies for your business depend on your industry and practice. Healthcare companies will have different policy needs than law firms. However, there are many common IT policy needs that are shared amongst businesses of all shapes and sizes. Below we outline some of the crucial IT policies your organization should have in place.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy

It’s usual to find employees using personal electronic devices like smartphones and laptops in modern workplaces. Organizations allow this practice for reasons like cutting costs and the convenience it brings to the staff. Sometimes, workers take corporate tasks home and handle them on their personal computers.

While this routine benefits your company, it can lead to cybersecurity and legal compliance concerns. Typically, a personal mobile device may not have sufficient protection against cyber threats. Hackers might access sensitive information or intercept data during transmission.

You might also break the labor laws unconsciously. The Department of Labor prohibits employing a worker for more than 40 hours per week unless you’re paying for overtime. Employees using personal devices after official hours could exceed this limit without your knowledge and get your business in trouble.

How a BYOD Policy Can Help

A well-crafted BYOD policy can define the minimum security requirements for an employee’s device to qualify for official assignments. You can require all employees intending to use their laptops or smartphones for business tasks to present them to your IT for security upgrades. The policy can also prohibit the use of personal devices for business-related activities off the clock.

Your BYOD policy doesn’t have to be intricate. It should only focus on the things that employees can or cannot do using their devices. You can develop your BYOD policy based on these samples.

Remote Work Policy

Nowadays, a fine line separates corporate workplaces from home stations. Technologies like video conferencing have enabled workers to collaborate and achieve their roles in organizations remotely.

Remote work arrangements can be temporary or permanent. A remote work policy outlines when and how staff in an organization can work from locations other than the official business premises. If you are considering transferring your employees to teleworking, create a remote working policy first.

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Importance of A Remote Workers Policy

Teleworking is not suitable for all tasks. Therefore, some workers can work from remote locations while others have to be on site. IT challenges may arise in remote workplaces, like security breaches due to the use of home internet connections and devices. Workers can also get distracted when working from unregulated worksites.

Ensure your remote work policy outlines who is eligible for teleworking and who manages such staff. The terms should be fair for all employees to prevent discrimination allegations. To ensure productivity, indicate the working hours or the expected output for workers.

Highlight your company’s cybersecurity requirements. You can demand every remote worker to use company laptops or upgrade their devices to a certain level of protection. You can also direct employees to use your virtual private network (VPN) when accessing corporate systems.

While these guidelines will enhance your employees’ productivity, don’t forget to include their legal rights. You can search the internet for a remote work policy template to get you started.

Acceptable Use Policy

Digital technologies have made it easy to access information and disseminate it via computer networks. Technology is a business driver, but its uncontrolled use can have adverse effects.

You can gain some control over your staff’s online behavior by introducing an acceptable use policy. It outlines restrictions to the use of an organization’s technological infrastructure, including computer systems, networks, and websites.

Benefits of an Acceptable Use Policy

An acceptable use policy can prevent the following worker-related issues in your company:

  • Time wastage on browsing the internet
  • Irresponsible posts and comments on social media
  • Sending personal emails using company accounts
  • Exposing your systems to cyber threats
  • Unauthorized sharing of sensitive information
  • Infringing data privacy regulations

Components of an Acceptable Use Policy

Include a statement warning employees against unsafe use of email, social media, and the internet. Describe acceptable behavior in your company, like how users should log in and which websites they can open.

Similarly, outline unacceptable behavior. Examples include downloading indecent content, invading other peoples’ privacy, defaming or bullying others via corporate networks, and infringing privacy and copyright laws.

Conclude with how the company will punish anyone who violates the policy. See this sample for tips on creating an acceptable use policy for your business.

Physical Security Policy

It’s an unfortunate reality in today’s world that disgruntled ex-employees and other similarly dangerous people pose a threat to every workplace. Jacksonville is no exception, with an active shooter situation occurring within recent history.

That’s why it’s critical to develop a physical security policy and have supporting items such as key fobs to help physically secure your company, your employees, and its infrastructure.

Put a policy in place that outlines what should happen if people forget their badge, make sure your employees know not to grant access to those people they are familiar with to the building without a badge. Define the onboarding and offboarding procedures for employees in regards to physical security.

Make sure a list is maintained of those with access to certain sensitive areas such as server rooms.

Jacksonville is growing extremely fast and people are moving in from out of town with cultural differences and opinions. It’s critical for your employee’s safety to get on the same page in regards to physical access control and physical security policies.

Incident Response Policy

Any entity that uses computer systems and networks is vulnerable to cybercrime. Incidents like data breaches can be exceedingly expensive. The consequences, which include fines and damage to brand reputation, can cripple your business. Develop an incident response policy to tackle cyberattacks.

Building an Incident Response Policy

Start by identifying the location of all your sensitive data and the available security infrastructure. Outline how your organization will monitor, detect, and report security incidents. For successful intrusions, describe how you’ll differentiate real and false threats and contain and neutralize them.

Your policy should have a follow-up plan. Provide a strategy for sealing loopholes to avoid future breaches, including updating your threat intelligence and incident response plan. Here’s a resource with more information about incident response policies.

How NetTech Can Help With IT Policies And Procedures.

The team at NetTech works with organizations from 10 to 500 employees across industries. We’ve seen the challenges that growing businesses face and have experience and assets to help you modernize your organization and put the policies, procedures, and IT infrastructure in place to help you grow. Our team of IT consultants and support personnel stands ready to advise you.

Contact us to discuss your needs.

The NetTech Content Team

NetTech Consultants is a Jacksonville based managed IT services provider that serves SMBs and organizations in Southeast Georgia and Northeast Florida. NetTech publishes content discussing information technology and cybersecurity concepts and trends in a business context.