Could You Have Seen It Coming?

Congratulations Jo! You’ve been promoted to Supervisor! Of all the candidates, both internal and external, you stood out as most qualified and most ready for the job.

This is great news for Jo. Not so great for Mark, another internal candidate. Mark is not happy. He thought he was more deserving ‘ he’s been with the company longer, paid his dues. He was, in his mind, entitled to that promotion. Which makes Mark a pretty significant risk, because disgruntled employees are a leading cause of insider risk turning into insider threat.

Disgruntled. Unhappy. Negative. Slighted. In many insider threat cases, employees who felt this way acted against the best interests of the organization. Peter is about to receive a less than stellar performance review. And with it, a lower pay increase than is the norm. Are you, in your role as protector of company interests, prepared to deal with the possible effects? Are you keeping a closer eye on Peter’s behavior? Looking for signs he is checking out?

Don was let go. 90 days on a performance improvement plan, but the results were unfortunately not there. Were you, company protector, monitoring Don’s activity during the performance improvement period? Are you, company protector, sure he did not take work product out of the company in anticipation of being let go? How are Don’s closest friends in the company taking it? Are they disgruntled? Unhappy? Negative?

In all of these situations, the possibility that an employee ‘ an insider ‘ might become negative was foreseeable. Jo’s promotion was not a surprise. Except maybe to Mark. Nor was Peter’s review, and Don’s termination.

Anticipating potential employee issues, and having a plan in place to detect and deal with them, if need be, is a key part of a comprehensive insider risk/insider threat mitigation plan. If you have an employee with a personnel issue (current or pending) you should enhance your scrutiny of that employee’s activity. A user activity monitoring solution is a dispassionate, unbiased way to do so. When an action is being taken that could cause negativity in the workplace, make sure you are monitoring those involved and regularly reviewing the results of that monitoring. Best case, you determine that professionalism rules the day. Worst case, an employee goes rogue, but at least now you’ve detected and can now deal with it.