More and more organizations rely on non-employees — contractors, third-party vendors, consultants, interns, and service providers — to get work done. While this extended workforce is critical for business, it also introduces complex identity and access management risks that traditional IT and HR systems aren’t equipped to handle.

Why Non-Employee Access Is a Growing Concern?

Unlike full-time employees, non-employees don’t always go through the same onboarding and offboarding processes. They often fall outside standard HR systems, leading to inconsistent tracking and access governance. The result? Increased risk of data breaches, compliance issues, and operational inefficiencies.

Some of the common risks with non-employee access management are as follows:

1. Lack of a System of Record – Most organizations rely on HR systems as the source of truth for identity data. But non-employees are usually not captured in the HR systems. This creates visibility gaps and inconsistent identity lifecycle management.
2. Delayed or Incomplete Offboarding – Non-employee access is often not revoked promptly after a contract ends. Or worse, it remains active indefinitely — opening the door to orphaned accounts and unauthorized access.
3. Overprovisioned Access – To expedite onboarding, non-employees may be given broad or excessive access “just to get started,” leading to unnecessary risk exposure and Segregation of Duties (‘SoD’) violations. This is specially true where the non-employees are working on IT support.
4. Manual, Error-Prone Processes – Access for contractors and vendors is often managed via spreadsheets or emails, resulting in inconsistent provisioning and compliance blind spots.
5. Audit and Compliance Complexity – Without centralized visibility or access controls, demonstrating compliance becomes difficult and costly.

How SailPoint Helps Address These Challenges?

SailPoint’s Identity Security Platform (‘ISC’) Non-Employee Risk Management (‘NERM’) solution offers a robust set of capabilities to help organizations effectively manage non-employee identities — with the same rigor applied to employees.

Some of the key features of NERM are as follows:

1. Extend Access Governance to Non-Employees – NERM allows organizations to define and manage non-employee identities in a tailored and collaborative manner enabling a single source of identity truth across your workforce.
2. Automated Lifecycle Management – ISC allows automation of the Joiner-Mover-Leaver (‘JML’) lifecycle for non-employees. It is possible to define rules based on contract start/end dates, sponsor approvals, or system attributes to trigger access provisioning and timely revocation.
3. Policy-Based Access Controls – ISC can be used to apply role-based and policy-driven controls to ensure non-employees only get access to what they need — no more, no less. It helps enforce access request approvals and SoD policies to minimize risk.
4. Access Certification & Visibility – SailPoint’s certification campaigns can be used to regularly review and validate access for non-employees. This ensures sponsors and managers re-certify access in a timely manner.
5. Reporting & Audit Readiness – ISC provides real-time visibility into who has access to what — and why. This simplifies compliance reporting and makes audits easier, faster, and more accurate.

This results in Secure, Compliant, and Scalable Non-Employee Access!

By extending identity governance to non-employees, SailPoint helps organizations reduce insider risk, eliminate manual errors, and demonstrate control over every identity in the environment — whether it’s a full-time employee, a contractor, or a third-party vendor.

What’s Next?

Ready to Take Control of Non-Employee Access?

We, at Hexadius, has successfully implemented SailPoint ISC and NERM for our clients. If you’re looking to streamline non-employee onboarding, reduce access risk, and improve audit outcomes, SailPoint provides the tools to do it — and Hexadius has the expertise to make it work for you.

📩 Let’s connect to discuss how we can help you manage your extended workforce with SailPoint NERM.