Why the IT department needs to be involved in employee termination

Letting an employee go can be a dirty job, but the IT department must help do it. It is necessary to involve IT in the employee termination process because the former employee who still has access to a company's network and proprietary corporate data is a security threat.

Moreover, it is smart to conserve certain technological resources, data, and logs in the event that the former employee or company itself decides to pursue litigation. Finally, it is essential to integrate IT into the process to help ensure that employee termination controls are comprehensive enough to meet relevant Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Information security and data retention policies must be company-specific and tailored to the laws under which the company operates. Nevertheless, there are at least three broad IT principles to which a company should adhere when and after terminating an employee.