What Finance is doing that would make IT cringe

OK, to be fair, it’s not just Finance staffers. But employees, Finance ones included, are taking some very risky chances when using company owned technology.

And the techies are not happy. In fact 92% of IT professionals in a recent study by TeamViewer said they’ve seen instances of “bad behavior” by employees on company computers.

You probably shouldn’t be happy either, because it’s exposing your company to a whole host of potentially very expensive problems.

Check out the specifics of what the study revealed and how you can keep your finance staffers from making tech trouble.

By the numbers

Take notice around your department over the next day or two – did you catch a glimpse of any of these bad behaviors:

• 82%  browse social media websites during work
• 57% open inappropriate email attachments
• 52% download games
• 45% download illegal content such as pirated movies, music or software, and
• 39% look for other jobs.

And those actions aren’t without consequences – many of them pretty costly for your company. Nine of 10 IT pros said they’ve seen damage to company equipment as a result. Specifically:

• 77% reported viruses (exposing your sensitive financial data to prying eyes)
• 74% cited slow computers (putting a major dent in staffer productivity)
• 55% reported crashed computers (downtime is expensive, but that’s nothing compared to the expense if you have to replace the machine)
• 48% cite mass pop-ups (another productivity drain, and if any of those pop-ups contain malware, look out!), and
• 33% identified an inability to open email (that can slow business down considerably).

Not a single one of those makes the list of conditions conducive to doing business.

So what can you do about it?

Your best course of action

Protecting your company, its info and its technologies can be a full-time job these days. To make it more manageable for those of us not charged with running IT, consider these strategies:

1. Remind folks they’re working on company property. Hopefully you have a tech usage policy you have employees sign.  Now could be a good time to remind them of that. Plus, make it clear that even if they’re opening attachments on their personal Gmail accounts, if they do it on a company-owned PC, they’re putting your property at risk. (If they have to check personal sites or email, tell them to do it on their personally-owned smart phones.)
2. Train employees on smart surfing practices. Are you continuously amazed that some people still don’t know not to click on links from unknown senders? It’s happening every day. It’s well worth some of IT’s time to give staffers in- and outside of Finance a tutorial on what they shouldn’t be doing and why.
3. Keep it current. Is there a new threat out there? Chances are your IT department’s heard about it. Encourage them to send out a heads up to all supervisors when something serious is afoot. And they can pass the info to their charges. That way folks will know what to do should they encounter a new scam.