Facing Onboarding Challenges in Cybersecurity

Businesses have to adapt to the expectations of the modern workforce rapidly. Employees are no longer satisfied with the slow learning curves and lengthy processes involved in onboarding. Surveys had found that almost 70% of employees stayed with a position for more than three years when their careers started with quality onboarding.

Furthermore, new employees pose a significant cybersecurity risk during onboarding and in the first months of their career. Most employees entering the workforce will have little to no cybersecurity training. They will be unclear on cybersecurity best practices and what cybersecurity measures a business relies on for safety. To protect themselves from cybersecurity threats, businesses today must leverage online IT training as part of the onboarding process.

Why is Effective Onboarding Important?

Onboarding incurs significant “hidden” costs. Not only does it cost money to find new hires through recruitment, but it also costs money to train them on a company’s internal practices and procedures. In addition to long-term employee retention, effective onboarding:

• Shortens the time between hire and full productivity of new employees.
• Reduces risk to the company from common errors and noncompliance.
• Increases protection from cybersecurity threats.
• Reduces the time spent by IT departments handling mundane tasks.

In the modern business environment, cybersecurity has become a critical component of profitability. A single successful cyber attack could cost a company up to 16 million dollars. Most attacks could be prevented with basic cybersecurity policy training, such as the Introduction to IT Security Policy.

Why Does Traditional Onboarding Not Work for Cybersecurity?

Adding cybersecurity training to onboarding is not a straightforward task. Cybersecurity's core concepts will not change across enterprises, and many options exist for quickly training employees on the fundamentals of cybersecurity. However, there will not be a one-size-fits-all tool for a particular company’s IT policies. Each company has its unique security challenges, and each company will need its curriculum. Hiring the experts to create and teach this curriculum will ultimately only slow down onboarding. Some of the major shortcomings of applying traditional cybersecurity onboarding concepts to the modern workforce include:

• It lacks user interaction and involvement.
• It lacks a measurement of success.
• It isn’t prepared by departments that have expert knowledge in cybersecurity.
• It isn’t based on Learning Science Principles.

The obvious solution to these problems is to provide employees with online training that focuses on their specific needs. The best practice for onboarding would be to leverage an online catalog of training that allows easy tailoring to each employee’s needs.

The Importance of Integrating Cybersecurity Training into Onboarding

The risks of not including cybersecurity training in the onboarding process are profound. In addition to enhancing security, including cybersecurity training into onboarding, increases productivity significantly. Even a class that only covers the basics of information security, such as the Introduction to Infosec , can benefit the onboarding process. Cybersecurity as an integral part of onboarding:

• Makes new employees more productive, faster.
• Prevents cybersecurity attacks.
• Reduces the risk of internal cybersecurity breakdowns due to employee ignorance.
• Produces a strong culture of shared security across a business.
• Educates the entire workforce on basic security.
• Saves the IT department time that would otherwise be spent troubleshooting minor issues.
• Increases client security and client trust in a business.

Cybrary for Teams can provide the training basics that a modern workforce needs to be secure. Cybrary has developed a broad library of courses to teach new employees the basics of cybersecurity, including in-depth courses on many IT and cybersecurity topics.

These courses are well-suited to improving employee onboarding effectiveness. They let a business focus on the topics most relevant to their needs while providing an interactive learning experience with quantitative measures of success. In so doing, Cybrary defeats the oft-encountered “one-size-fits-all” onboarding approach new employees dread. The Cybrary library provides the training business needs to tailor and streamline onboarding for new employees.

For more information on Cybrary for Teams and the impact on onboarding for your business’s workforce, request a free demo today.