Processes are important for any organization, but they’re especially important for startups. Smaller companies don’t have the luxury of having a lot of people to handle different tasks. Everyone wears multiple hats, and that means that processes need to be in place to ensure that things get done correctly and efficiently — especially when you’re talking about securing access to your accounts, customer data, and workspace privileges.
But how do you set up secure but flexible employee lifecycle processes when you’re just starting out (and you don’t have a head of IT or HR yet, and you have four other jobs to do, and you still want to have a life)? The key is to start lightweight. Don’t try to create a complex system right away. Instead, focus on the most important processes and build them out over time.
In this blog post, I’ll give you some tips for implementing and managing identity and access management (IAM) processes at your organization — and let you in on how we make the most of our own limited startup founder time.
Tips for managing IAM processes at your startup
Creating and maintaining any process requires effort. A process should act like a microculture: aligning everyone involved without getting in their way. It can be tricky to strike a balance.
YeshID helps small- and medium-sized businesses automate processes, reduce risk, and improve compliance around identity management and account access. And we’re also a small business ourselves.
Our mentality around process at this point in our growth story is to focus on effective processes from the outset — but keep them to a minimum. After all, effective process management provides a smoother experience, but it shouldn’t get in the way of building and growing our product or business.
Here are a few things we’ve learned along the way.
Be basic
What are the essential tasks that need to be done in your business? Once you know what those are, you can start to develop processes for them.
For example, you might need to create processes for onboarding new employees, granting access to systems and data, and deprovisioning employees when they leave the company. The next time you onboard a new employee, keep track of everything you do as a way to get a list of needed processes started. Then build them out from there.
Be informative
Document your processes and make them available to all your employees. This will help ensure that everyone is using the same processes and that there is no confusion about who has access to what.
Another way to ensure your processes are understood is to make them easy to follow. Use clear and concise language, and avoid jargon.
Be open
Things will change as your business grows, so your processes need to be flexible enough to adapt. Once you have some processes in place, get feedback from your team and make changes as needed. This will help you ensure that your processes are effective and efficient.
At YeshID, we continuously identify and improve processes that don’t serve us well by using feedback cycles. Our strongest processes have short feedback cycles, like unit tests in code that quickly signal any issues. On the other hand, the processes tested less often, like planning an off-site, tend to be less efficient.
Be protective of your time
Finally, as promised: the most meaningful move we’ve made as startup founders is to lay claim over our time. To take one thing off the endless founder to-do list, we tap into experts whenever possible. We know that we can’t do it all ourselves.
For example, we have a finance advisor, Shane; and we use an Employee of Record (EOR) to hire people globally. These ready-made processes save us time and what could be costly mistakes.
And at this point in the vast technical landscape, why bother building and maintaining any functionality outside of your core business goals? There are a lot of people, tools, and software available that can help you create repeatable processes and execute them to save your time and to help avoid errors.
Who’s building your IAM processes?
We built YeshID to meet the need to manage the growing complexity of your employees’ digital footprint. Identity and access management in the 21st century means digital onboarding, provisioning of the hundred-and-one software apps your org uses, plus traditional hardware setup. It’s become complex (and often frustrating) for both managers and employees.
Hopefully, these tips will help in your own process creation. Alternatively, you could use a ready-to-implement solution like YeshID that suits your current needs, offering comprehensive management of onboarding, offboarding, apps, costs, and access, and empowers employees to manage their digital footprint easily.
Take something off your never-ending to-do list. Make managing identity and access management easier for your small company with YeshID. Get access to beta now.
