When onboarding new information technology employees, it's essential to make sure you have all your ducks in a row. In other words, you need to ensure that they have everything they need — as well as the necessary knowledge required — to excel in their new role with your organization. Having a clear understanding is especially crucial for organizations operating in the healthcare security where strong IT practices are essential to keeping patient data safe.
While you did your research on your new IT employees beforehand to ensure that you have the experience and expertise to be assets to your organization, it still helps to provide a little "refresh" of best practices and how your IT department runs.
So, to help your IT team thrive from day one, here are six key things to cover with new IT employees.
Making sure that you have emails and passwords set up for your new IT employees early on will help avoid any issues down the road. Instead of handing out universal passwords as the new employee needs them, handing them over to them in the first week will ensure that they have everything they need from the get go to help your organization succeed.
Taking good care of the hardware used for IT purposes is vital for the functionality of that technology. While some of your new IT employees may know the proper ways to clean your tech, some of them may not be as familiar. So, taking the time to relay the best ways to keep your tech in good shape and working correctly is essential.
For organizations that operate in the healthcare sphere, it should be a top priority to ensure that every new employee is familiar with what HIPAA is and how it applies directly to their job. Onboarding a new IT employee without first going over HIPAA would be like trying to play a board game without first telling everyone the rules. It isn't going to end well, and mistakes are going to be made along the way.
If you need assistance in instilling HIPAA best practices in your workplace, contact Medicus IT today. We offer extensive HIPAA security solutions to help ensure that your practice is maintaining HIPAA compliance while keeping your network secure and running efficiently.
In line with thoroughly discussing HIPAA with your new IT employees, you should also take the time to lay out your organization's internal security best practices. For example, how to properly dispose of data and old tech. Going over the protocol for what should happen in the event of a data breach, hack, missing data, etc. is key to making sure your new employees feel confident that they can act correctly if trouble arises.
There should be transparency with your commonly used tools that are key to your organization's success. Too many companies fail to go through proper training for their organization's tools, but investing time and effort in the first few weeks for this topic will help make sure that your employees are more efficient down the road when it comes to working with these tools.
It can be pretty daunting when starting a new position at a new organization. To help your new IT employees feel like they are up for the job, offer them some words of wisdom in the form of productivity and prioritization tips. While they may take on their work style as time goes on, it's nice to give them a starting point on how to be most efficient and effective in their new role.