Why are turnover and trust so important. Most organizations in this modern era experience large amounts of turnover which affects trust. It used to be you went to work for a company you invested your time and money in the company and they invested in you. You would then spend years working your career. Maybe change jobs within the organization, maybe move to a different area. Maybe even move up. But that is not the case anymore. For a variety of reasons this has changed radically.
The why of such excessive turnover is not the subject of this discussion. But it is important to understand the effect this can have on your data security posture. The harm can be immense and is an area which is not often explored. Remember what Reagan said “trust but verify.”
Where Is The Loyalty
Today because of the demographics and the transience of our working world we are not as loyal to each other as we used to be. This is not a shot at companies or at employees. It is the nature of the game. Loyalty is at an all-time low at the workplace. Check out this article from Wharton School of Business about the declining loyalty at the workplace. People are ready to jump ship for a bigger better deal. And companies are much more likely to move employees or lay them off at much greater intervals than in the past. With loyalty comes trust and trust is essential to a safe and secure environment.
When employees trust your company they will more likely be willing to maintain their own security posture more studiously. When management trusts their people they will be able to delegate more important security functions down the line. And when this happens your entire company becomes more secure. Turnover and trust will help determine this. But without trust all this goes out the window, and with it goes your data security.
Trust Equals Security
Trust is such an important component of security that it cannot be stressed enough. In fact it is so important. That in the area of security technology, the term trust is used to define what areas of a network are protected, and what areas you need to be protected from. Trust is a fundamental component of security. So as you can see once again security is not really a technology issue. It is an organizational issue, a management issue, a policy issue, a cultural issue. And yes sometimes we need security technology to police it. So within your organization ask yourself.
How many people do you have that have only been there 6 months or less and handle sensitive data? What do you do to ensure these people should be trusted? Turnover affects trust which affects security. What things are you doing to engender trust among employees? Because 60% of all attacks come from inside the corporate network, yes that means from the people you are trusting already. Building trust and then enforcing these trusting relationships is essential of to a secure environment.