How to Get Your Team to Fall In Love with MFA

One of the most challenging parts of implementing multi-factor authentication is getting your staff on board without having to twist their arms too much. The pushback is real, and it’s largely because employees see MFA as an inconvenience rather than a mechanism for security. You can change the culture around cybersecurity at your business and get your staff on board with MFA—and it’s easier than you might think.

Here’s a three-step process for how to roll out MFA across a non-technical organization with minimal complaining.

Step 1: Kill the Tech Jargon and Make the Risk Feel Real

The biggest mistake you can make with MFA is explaining how it works rather than why it’s important—from both a personal perspective and a financial one.

Your team doesn’t care about token authentication; they want a stable paycheck, and you can’t give them one if your business is knocked out by a random security incident. Tell your team about the stakes involved with a compromised password and what happens if your systems go down for two weeks while you deal with the fallout.

That should be enough to get them to consider implementation and compliance more seriously.

Step 2: Frame MFA as a Mutual Protection Pact

Security measures feel like a penalty if your team believes they are there to track their every move.

You need to flip the script and reframe MFA and security compliance as an act of respect for both the business and their colleagues. Position MFA as a shared responsibility where every single employee acts as a guardian for the other people in the office. Make it abundantly clear that the weakest link dictates the safety of the entire group, and one individual using an unverified device could put the entire business at risk.

When framed this way, MFA goes from being just another security protocol to an inclusive way to protect every colleagues’ job security.

Step 3: Minimize the Mechanical Friction

Culture might win the hearts of your team, but it’s smooth logistics that will pull in the skeptics and naysayers of MFA.

If your MFA system is a nightmare to use, then of course your team isn’t going to buy in the way you want. Work with your IT provider to deploy a modern, frictionless authentication system that works with just the press of a button or a couple of keys. Instead of clunky SMS codes, use a smartphone push-notification app or hardware keys to ensure your MFA is simple and easy.

In a best-case scenario, you can combine MFA with single sign-on to make it easier than ever to get to work without security getting in the way too much.

When you make security easy and connect security to your company’s continued success, compliance ceases to be an issue. You might be surprised by how many employees who once complained about MFA would start wearing cybersecurity compliance as a badge of honor.

To make cybersecurity a priority for your business, including MFA and other tools, don’t wait any longer. Call us today at (630) 495-3830.