Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 15 | Page 96

FINAL WORD test. If an employee can perform his or her duties at the required level, they have every chance of winning the case of unfair dismissal in court. Loyalty to the employer matters a lot when it affects the business. Only if an employer has paid special attention to ‘terms and conditions’ which states that any sign and evidence of alcohol at a workplace leads to unavoidable dismissal, it is virtually impossible to justify firing an employee. Special software systems that control the behaviour and communication of employees within the team can detect signs quicker than common observation. Personal qualities, hobbies, circumstances often affect the work of an employee; having entered the office, we are still those people we have always been. We don’t switch into robots with a set of professional functions. Problems with law The line between the private and corporate Sergey Ozhegov, CEO at SearchInform Problems are different. An employee can violate traffic rules, fight with a neighbour or refuse to pay alimony, but when he or she faces a trial for fraud, a major fine or punishment for criminal behaviour, the company/employer can’t remain silent and has no option but to act. A rogue employee will cast a shadow on the reputation of the organisation. He or she can drop out of work for a long time while the problems with paying a fine can be solved at the expense of the company, through fraud, bribes or kickbacks. Connection with banned organisations: Terrorism, weapons I think it’s pretty much a no-comment section; this issue is always tracked. Employees with radical views make you expect anything including recruiting colleagues to organise a terrorist act on the territory of the company. The problem of terrorism is one of those that require well- conducted approach. The tragic events in France in 2015 contributed to the request from 87% of SearchInform clients asking to install anti-terrorist policies. Debts and credits Situations are different as well, but can be equally tense; a debt, a large loan and the inability to pay it off. Circumstances force people to seek solutions. And they go for it, 96 INTELLIGENTCIO accept extra deals to earn money, kickbacks, bribes or even agree to steal data to sell it. South Africa ranked highly showing an impressing number of debtors. According to the statistics (2014), 86% of the population applied for a loan. Eleven million South Africans took out a loan contributing to the total debt of US$118 billion. One of them might be your employee. It has been revealed that an average employee spends 20 working hours per month on solving financial problems and loses about six hours of productive work. Twenty-five out of 37 million employable adults in South Africa have applied to lenders, while only 10 million are officially employed. The situation is peculiar due to the inability of a person, who took out a considerably big loan, to pay for minimal daily needs. To cope with the critical situation as quickly as possible, employees are ready to commit fraud within the company. Haters or those consistently discontent A negatively-minded employee is a ‘time bomb’. He or she can harm companies in the most unexpected way: leave the team at a critical moment, move to a competitor, pander staff to turn against management and make employees to think of quitting. Some personal qualities contribute to work, some might appear harmful. The information security service is responsible for detecting such risks and controlling them; that’s what the IS-specialists do every day. It is conducted at three levels. • Control of websites, sources that employees visit; analysis of search requests of an employee • Control of communication, discussions in work chats • Control of employee activities: Files uploading to clouds, within e-mails, to social networks; copying to devices, sending documents for printing, sending confidential documents within the corporate network, etc But not all risk groups are monitored equally properly. The information security service is interested in intercepting direct threats to the company, something that can lead to loss of money and reputation. Illegal activities, problems with law enforcement agencies, theft, fraud. There will be no immediate consequences if the violation is out of the high-risk group. It will help to form a comprehensive opinion when making managerial decisions. It reminds the reverse point system; score 10 points and fall under the control of information security service. Getting into a risk group may deprive an employee of his career advancement, cancel a transfer to another branch, etc. The idea that drives the employer when controlling employees is to ensure that personal qualities don’t affect professional ones because business isn’t run by robots but real people. n www.intelligentcio.com