Payment app recently found this out the hard way
One of the main reasons for having proper offboarding is to improve the security of sensitive information and data.
When an employee leaves, companies should ensure their access to company software and documents is removed to minimize the risk of misused, stolen or accidentally leaking important information. In addition, collecting company-owned equipment like laptops and smartphones is also a good way to lessen any data misuse.
Read more: How to offboard employees gracefully
Cash App Investing, a division of the popular payment app Cash App, recently found this out the hard way.
More than eight million Cash App Investing customers may have had personal data compromised after a former employee downloaded internal reports without permission, parent company Block Inc. revealed in a regulatory filing earlier this month. Headquartered in San Francisco, Block said it’s reaching out to roughly 8.2 million current and former customers about the incident.
The former employee downloaded the data in December, after their employment with the company had ended, according to the filing. “We know how these reports were accessed, and we have notified law enforcement,” Danika Owsley, a spokesperson for Cash App, told CNN Business.
Information in the reports included customers' full names and brokerage account number, which is the personal identification number associated with a customers' stock activity on the platform. For some customers, the data accessed also included the value and holdings of the brokerage portfolio, as well as some trading activity, according to the SEC filing.
Having a good employee offboarding process also shows that the company cares for the wellbeing of the departing employee. Leaving a job and familiar workplace is stressful no matter the circumstances of how they left. Therefore, supporting the employee by means of convenient and stress-free offboard processes creates a good long-lasting impression on the employee even after they leave the company, and can even strengthen the positive employer brand enough for them to promote the company to their connections.
Learn how to offboard employees gracefully here.