March 17, 2008

Security From Two View Points: Millennials and Others

In your business, you are going to hire Generation "Y". This is the group of people born between 1977 and 1996, accordingly to Wikipedia. I wish I could squeeze into this group but I miss it by just a tiny bit.

James Gaskin writes in Network World that the security measures that might work on older employees won't work on this younger generation.

For example, in this generation (of which I can identify) "we" want to use file sharing networks (because corporate email is often too restrictive). We want to Facebook our clients and fine answers to corporate problems using LinkedIn. This is a challenge for companies. While companies want to keep their business as secure as possible, they also need to loosen up the "IT shackles" a bit and accommodate the type of communication that Millennials need (want) to do.

The best way to do this is to educate your employees on why and how to be secure while using these more public and open communication tools.

The Wall Street journal had an extensive article about how to get around the IT department, "10 Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You". If you are too restrictive in how your employees can use IT they'll do their best to get around your restrictions possibly causing an even worse, insecure, office environment. Or worse - they'll just leave to work for another company.

Work with your security expert and go through the list of common applications your employees want to use and find out what are the dangers of using them. Balance the dangers against the productivity or "relaxation" gains these tools provide.

You also don't want employees wasting time on these tools, so be open and maybe let your employees know that you know they will be using these tools and you expect them to be productive, note waste time, but to explore the internet and bring the skills learned to the advancement of your business.

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