> having come into a relatively established small company a little while > ago there were a number of big ticket things that needed to be done > which took up most of my concentration for the first few months. Now > they're done, the tidying up of the corporate systems and facilities > is beginning. And this is where I'm hitting a problem; wise-assed > users and a problem with lots of personal files being stored on > company laptops (I don't just mean a letter to the local council; I'm > talking GBs of iTunes, movies, photos etc.) along with a culture that > people treat company laptops as if they were their own. While I see > no problem with a little reasonable personal use, 40Gb of movies on a > laptop including the odd little trojan on "funny" video clips is > causing problems for my desktop staff when they're supporting users > (especially when said users expect/demand that all of their personal > stuff to be copied onto any new machine they get during rebuilds). > > Obviously I need to have a chat with HR and legal about this before > kicking off communications to the whole company along the lines of > "stop taking the mickey, people", but having never done this kind of > thing before (I'm a pointy-end operations person by experience, not > corporate IT which came as an added bonus in this job) I'm not sure > how to go about the whole culture change on use of laptops. My gut > feeling is to go in hard and say "stop it or we'll delete it all for > you", but I know that's not going to win hearts and minds. The other > thing is that whichever tack I take on this, there are a good few > users will argue and poke holes and try to find ways to circumvent > whatever is mandated/requested. There is something in the AUP, but it > is quite permissive "Employees are responsible for exercising good > judgment regarding the reasonableness of personal use.". > > Anyone here have any advice to offer on good ways to get the ball > rolling without causing a riot amongst my users?
This is actually very easy - First let me say that if you do as you're thinking - tell them what they're not allowed to do and actively delete stuff - you're going to piss them off and make enemies. Don't create a policy of what people aren't allowed to do on their computers. They'll think you're fascist if you do. Instead, create a policy of what the IT responsibilities are to help. And then highlight some of the points of interest, things that people might anticipate, but will not get. Personal photos, movies, music in particular. Notify them that these will be excluded from your backups, and you won't dedicate your resources to working on them. Notify them that if their computer is replaced for any reason (or they transition from one computer to another) you will only make the new computer functional for business purposes and the rest is the user's responsibility. If there is a scarcity of resources, the user might not be allowed to have both computers for an overlapping period of time. It is the user's responsibility to backup all personal items to external media. While you're at it, I think you better create all the news at once. Users are not allowed to use illegal or unlicensed software, under any circumstances. Users are not allowed to have or view pornography on a company computer, either on premises or off premises. Users are not allowed to use the company network for illegal or unlicensed software or pornography, even if it is their personal computer. All of these violations are enforceable by HR, up to and including termination, and depending on legal, seeking compensation for damages after termination. And a last point - This is probably the most important one but the most difficult to communicate in an email - Don't allow yourself to get upset, no matter what a user does, ever. One of the many ingredients of good leadership is the ability to remain calm and productive in the face of even the worst obstacles. If you find yourself getting emotionally involved at any point, think about people who are enslaved in some other country, imagine what it would be like if your job constantly put your life at risk. Put things in perspective. All of these user infractions are small and should be easy to deal with calmly. You shouldn't care about 40G of crap on their computer. You should only care about problems, present and future. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
