Why Safety Consciousness Coaching Is Required From Day 1
Tips for introducing safety training for new employees
When employees are hired, they usually update their LinkedIn profile, take a photo and share it on social media, talk about their title and show how excited they are. In doing so, they do not realize how vulnerable they are at this point in time to being victims of a cyber attack.
Instead of ignoring this fact, it’s good to be proactive in talking about cybersecurity in the new employee focus. And we’re not just talking about a quick 5-minute recommendation here – we’re talking about making safety awareness training a part of your new employee onboarding process.
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It is important for your new employees to build a safety culture right from the start. Let’s consider how you can incorporate cybersecurity into your new hire onboarding process – and what phishing training is and how to conduct a simulated phishing test – starting with some best practices for new hire onboarding security awareness.
“Security awareness training is required from day 1, as hackers target your employees from day 1 onwards.”
Security awareness training topics and responsibilities
With the number of cyberattacks on the rise, security awareness training should be part of your onboarding training for new hires from day 1. Let’s talk about which safety awareness training topics you should include in your new employee training.
The basic concepts to get started are an introduction to cybersecurity – essentially what cybersecurity is, why it matters, and what to expect when hackers are constantly trying to target you and your business. It’s important to set expectations here, show how seriously your company takes cyber security, and incorporate them into your ongoing employee training program.
The biggest topic of security awareness is phishing. Most employees have heard the word before but are not as familiar with phishing defense as you think. This is one of the most important topics to talk about as your employees face phishing almost every day, especially during the onboarding of new hires when a hacker could exploit their vulnerability by impersonating colleagues they are in their new one Organization.
Gift card scams, for example, are becoming increasingly popular with bad actors. You monitor a company on LinkedIn, just wait for a new employee to join, then pretend to be a manager in your organization and instruct your new employee to buy gift cards. Because this new person is eager to make a good impression, they can react quickly without thinking that this is a scam.
Typically, the role that helps coordinate and deliver security awareness training is the IT director, CISO, or some other IT or security professional. It’s not uncommon for the company’s compliance manager, COO, or even human resources department to coordinate content posting. It is recommended that multiple departments be involved in building and managing a safety awareness training program.
In this way, the entire organization is involved and invested in the success or failure of employee security training and activities instead of pointing a finger at IT.
Why phishing simulation tests are important
Phishing simulation tests are an integral part of a security awareness training program. They were developed to test your employees using real scenarios.
For example, suppose your new employee receives some LinkedIn connection requests from “new colleagues” on their first day. He’s busy and takes requests from lots of new people he doesn’t know yet. It’s an exciting time for the rep, and email notifications are coming quickly.
Now imagine that this request comes from someone you don’t know yet and asks them to click on the email. You may already be signed in to LinkedIn, but let’s say you’ve been taken to a new page. You enter your username and password and nothing happens, an error page. What gives?
Guess what – this was all a simulated test to see if a hacker could steal your new employee’s information in exactly the same way. Phishing tests are therefore essential as they show employees how easy it can be to get an employee to click. Phishing simulations are designed to educate people on what not to do with their email. It is important to realize that this is training to strengthen good behavior and not try to humiliate your new hires on the first day. This is a security issue.
It is important to realize that this type of training influences your company culture. With employees finding this type of test so radically new, it can be alarming to them why their organization is trying to trick them into doing this. Recognizing this and communicating why you are running phishing tests is almost as important as the tests themselves.
While this chapter does not specifically cover how to conduct a phishing test, it is important to understand that it is an important part of the employee onboarding process. Phishing tests are not intended to deceive employees; Instead, they are used to measure the effectiveness of your overall safety awareness training program.
This is how you build a security culture with continuous security awareness training
Building a safety culture doesn’t happen overnight. Security should not be seen as an afterthought, but should be integrated into the corporate culture from day one. Ongoing safety awareness training should be part of your employee development training program.
Security awareness is a topic that changes every day and must be at the forefront of every employee interaction with technology.
To keep staff members year-round, consider posting new content monthly. The more you surround your employees with new safety training content, the more people talk about safety, especially when it’s fun.
Closing the safety awareness feedback loop
Since the content of safety awareness is constantly changing, it is your responsibility to listen to employees about what they like and what they don’t. This is not just to get feedback on the content, but above all to get feedback on what the employees want and need to learn. This is often overlooked in security awareness.
Not listening to your employees is a huge mistake when conducting a safety awareness program. Regular feedback, especially from your new hires, is a great way to build relationships with your employees and build a culture of security.
Security is not a set and forget it. You need to be aware of the latest threats your employees are facing and create a learning plan to educate them on how to counter them. Ask them what questions they might have and remind them that you are all there together.
Employees may hesitate to make suggestions or ask questions because they don’t want to look stupid. Consider holding small, private sessions to gather feedback, as this will allow input without challenging someone or possibly making them feel uncomfortable. The more you incorporate this type of feedback into your training, the better your progress will be.
Conclusion
Security awareness training is essential for your new hire as hackers could be watching your LinkedIn or other online presence looking for easy targets. Phishing simulations should be part of your new hire training and ongoing employee security awareness training program to show how easy it is for someone to accidentally reveal their credentials.
Not only IT is responsible for cybersecurity, but everyone in HR! Open dialogue with employees to get their opinion on their safety training, what works and what doesn’t
Just as you all work together towards a business goal, everyone from the C-suite to your newest hire helps keep your business safe from a potential cyberattack. We all have to do our part to ensure that we protect one another on the Internet.
We wrote the How To Make Great Training Awesome: Your New Employee Onboarding Checklist eBook so you can jump through the parts of this book to find the information you need to be successful with your new employee training. Each chapter ends with important insights, and you can also repeat our webinar where we discuss how you can incorporate storytelling into your staff training.
