Is your staffing software and technology running in the most secure environment? No matter your reputation, if your business isn’t operating on a secure, high-availability platform, your agency could experience a system outage or data breach that could harm your brand, lead to fines and penalties, and destroy your most valued client relationships.
Some staffing leaders may not be familiar with the term SOC 2 or what it means for their agency, but they should. A growing threat environment is making data security and system reliability a top priority for most businesses – especially for those managing personally identifiable information (PII), or information that that can be used to uncover an individual’s identity, such as social security numbers, mailing addresses, and driver’s licenses.
As your agency grows, the complexity and magnitude of employee data your agency is responsible for can make you even more vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches and ransomware attacks. These threats can seriously harm your reputation, halt operations, and damage your bottom line. Perform a Google search and you will find headline after headline recounting horror stories about companies that have been impacted by high-profile data breaches that cost their businesses millions.
In fact, the number of data breaches in the US rose by almost 40% in the second quarter of 2021. And according to the State of Ransomware 2021 report by Sophos, the average cost of ransomware attacks more than doubled from $761,106 in 2020 to $1.85 million in 2021.
These threats are especially traumatic for any service-based organization that provides resources that directly affect a users’ operational efficiency. Thus, as your recruiting firm becomes more reliant on using technology to manage PII, it’s critical to ensure you’re selecting staffing and applicant tracking system software that meets global industry security standards and ensures best practices surrounding data privacy.
The best way to minimize your risk of catastrophic data disclosure or loss is by partnering with a cloud-based staffing software vendor that is SOC-compliant and then use the tools they provide to put strong security practices in place. In other words, the partner supplies the walls, doors, and locks, but YOU still must control which doors open and who gets keys.
And no different from the electrical utility or phone company, you expect your services to be there when you need them, and to be up and running quickly in case of an emergency. The same should hold true with your staffing technology. For any growing business to succeed, one’s software platforms must be reliable and available 24/7 with little to no disruption or downtime. SOC compliance means a service-based company has the right people, processes, and technology in place to keep delivering high-quality services, even if a major component fails, and can recover those services quickly in the event of a large-scale disaster.
So, what is SOC 2 and how does it ensure that your company is operating in a safe and reliable environment?
Developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), SOC 2 compliance requires service-based organizations to undergo a series of external audits by independent Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) who do a comprehensive assessment of the controls that are in place, addressing everything from organizational structure and process disciplines to personnel management practices and technologies used.
These assessments are based on five separate Trust Services Criteria (TSC). At minimum, SOC 2 addresses security, but it can also cover controls that ensure best practices for system availability, data privacy and confidentiality, and processing integrity.
It’s also important to understand the two types of SOC 2 and what makes them different:
In today’s risky environment, organizations are often only seeking to partner with vendors that have earned SOC 2 Type 2 compliance as those companies have fully demonstrated that they already have proper controls in place that are suitably designed and implemented and can attest to their effectiveness.
And, for staffing in particular, clients may feel more comfortable knowing that your core technology platforms are cloud hosted and have SOC 2 type 2 certification. Also, in some cases, having vendors who are SOC 2 Type 2 can help lower business or cyber insurance premiums – another added benefit.
To demonstrate our commitment to reliability and information security, Avionté is pleased to announce that we have achieved SOC 2 Type 2 compliance! This represents a huge milestone for both our company and users as it gives our clients an extra layer of assurance that their information will be managed securely, effectively, efficiently, and reliably.
To meet this goal, we developed a robust series of organization-wide best practices based on the ISO 27001 framework, a set of standards that provide 200 control objectives defining what you need to do to maintain a secure and available platform, while protecting sensitive data. Following this ISO framework, we then explored best practices from similar organizations, adapting any new processes to our own while formalizing ones that were already in place. This impacted much of our organizational structure, ranging from the way we hire, train, monitor, and incentivize our employees to ensure compliance with our new operating models.
We also implemented many advanced technologies that, combined with our updated business practices, protect us from both malicious actors and everyday human error. And, with the recent consolidation of our infrastructure to the AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud platform, we can better align our processes with global ISO industry standards to ensure the utmost security and platform reliability for our clients.
As Odell Tuttle, Avionté Chief Technology Officer, explains:
“As a result of our SOC audit, we can provide our customers with assurance that a 3rd party who is expert at understanding the capabilities and controls of a business has gone through our system and practices at great length over many months and has determined that we meet the needs for reliably operating our large-scale SaaS platform and protecting our clients’ data!”
You have enough worries. Having confidence that systems are in place to keep your information safe and your platform both secure and available is essential for business success. Knowing that Avionté has been certified by an independent organization means customers can trust us to keep up with ongoing efforts to strengthen infrastructure controls, identify security issues, mitigate risk, and make sure client information is secure in our cloud – all while continuing to maintain 24/7 platform reliability.
Now customers who use our staffing software can enjoy greater peace of mind regarding the safety and availability of their data. And with all the perils threatening businesses today, having that trust is gold!
