Remote IT Asset Recovery: What You Need to Know

Remote working carries a number of benefits, but the natural rotation of an organization's staff can present logistical challenges to many stakeholders.

After the first wave of COVID-19, people have been forced to describe their profession in binary terms: you either work from home or you don't. You will be able to perform your work duties as usual, and the view of your employer will remain the same, as long as you don't demonstrate COVID-19 symptoms.

The risk of infecting your colleagues will be lower, but your HR and IT departments as well as your Chief Financial Officer will have other concerns if you work remote for the foreseeable future.

Natural change is inevitable:

Recruiting company Monster reports that every year in the UK there is a natural employee turnover rate, though it will obviously vary based on the industry. Retailing, catering, call centers, construction, and media have the highest turnover rates. On the other hand, the lowest rates are found in the legal, accounting, education, and public sectors.

It is noteworthy that the natural turnover rate is lower than that of COVID-19. Churn, redundancies, and redeployments in the near future will be difficult to anticipate. The Financial Times says that while some jobs have survived other economic downturns, they are also set to disappear once these blue-collar jobs go away. Blue-collar workers lost 5-10 percent of their jobs after the 2008 financial crisis, while other jobs were relatively unaffected.

By the end of March 2021, we will have been in numerous states of lockdown for an entire year, with job losses associated with these situations. It may be impossible to wait for that natural average churn rate to return in your industry.

Implications for stakeholders:

By now, almost every company has incorporated remote working into their professional model. In the future, staff will be using corporate assets, not personal devices, such as laptops, PCs, or other data-transmitting devices. Several times, this has required purchasing new equipment rather than simply shipping it from the office. For example, printers cannot be shared. Additionally, many colleagues will require smartphones.

A considerable investment has been made to facilitate remote working, and though this investment may be offset to a degree by higher productivity rates, if at least 15 percent of your staff is leaving your company per year, there are two serious concerns: the cost of the devices; and the data held on them.

Costs and data recovery for IT assets:

It has become a cost for HR to deploy and recover assets to remote workers, which was not an issue hitherto. Staffing costs are part of the upfront investment, while assets that cannot be recovered and redeployed are also part of the costs.

It will be harder to collect assets from an ex-employee the longer they hang onto them. The bank may have acted in good faith; for example, they may have moved out of state and it may not be feasible to recover assets. You will need to buy new equipment if you are unable to collect the assets.

Ex-employees holding company assets is another area which is legally challenging and fraught with difficulty under GDPR. HR departments might incorporate 'asset recovery' into their off-boarding processes, but actually reclaiming assets before any data is compromised should be the most important step.

Providing Recovery and Redeployment Services:

Since employees leave for many reasons, it is essential that the tactics used for recovering such assets are sensitive, yet effective. In addition, you should include the disposal process within your IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) strategy.

This process should include a hardware audit as well as the collection of information on the make, model, serial number, and asset tag of the recovered asset. You shouldn't redeploy a laptop that can't even be switched on; it makes no sense. Additionally, it is good ITAD practice to note any damage to the asset and then cross-reference this with a register of assets.

It is important to note that, for most recovered assets, the data will need to be erased as part of the destruction process. After the data has been wiped out, the operating system should be reinstalled with a corporate image or a base Windows image.

Lastly, a decision is made concerning how to use the asset: will it be redistributed, used as a part, or recycled in accordance with environmental regulations.

Costs of assets are relatively easy to calculate, but costs associated with GDPR breaches are not. You can, therefore, suffer significant short- and long-term costs if you fail to recover assets, and may face an even greater GDPR penalty if you fail to recover assets in the first place.

BayTech Recovery offers comprehensive and innovative IT solutions. In addition to providing custom services, BayTech Recovery builds long-term relationships with the clients it works with.