What the Looming Worker Exodus Means for Network Security & How Organizations Can Respond

Every professional can relate to the feeling of watching an older, highly experienced coworker retire. While it’s often a happy occasion to celebrate the contributions, an individual brought to a company, the gulf of skill and knowledge that person leaves can be intimidating to fill.

Many businesses today are all too familiar with this retirement trend – especially in developed and Western nations – as more individuals from older generations continue to leave the workforce. This worker exodus, known as “The Great Resignation” or “The Golden Resignation,” will profoundly impact various aspects of work, including network security. With the cost of cybercrime hitting $8 trillion in 2023, companies must navigate the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape without their best and most experienced employees.

Two solutions businesses should harness to bolster their network resilience amid this talent shortage are Out-of-Band (OOB) management networking tools and advanced automation technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

The Network Security Implications of the Golden Resignation

There is a global talent shortage of skilled roles, such as network engineers and cybersecurity experts, which will continue to worsen, according to current projections. A 2023 analysis of the Golden Resignation carried out by Censuswide on behalf of a leading OOB management solutions provider found that 86% of those US-based CIOs surveyed anticipate that at least 25% of their network engineers will retire in the next five years. This global study surveyed 502 CIOs and network engineers in the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Australia.

The most significant takeaway from the analysis (outside the fact that many network engineers will retire soon) is how much of an impact talent shortage has on network integrity. For example, almost all CIOs said that a lack of engineers led to an inability to manage networks. Likewise, 91% of US engineers believe a lack of skills impacted their networks.

Maintaining the lucrative “always-on” status for networks demands round-the-clock and hands-on management from a dedicated team of professionals. Veteran network engineers are deeply familiar with the potential weakness of their company’s network. However, sustaining that ideal always-on status becomes much more difficult when limited by less-experienced teams.

Reducing human oversight can expose the network to exploitation by cybercriminals. Should bad actors successfully infiltrate a business environment, they could cause a network outage, making critical services and applications inaccessible. Network downtime is expensive (e.g., recovery fees and lost productivity). It also damages customer experience and partner relations and can cause employee burnout and turnover. In light of these dangers, organizations must leverage solutions that can empower short-staffed teams to strengthen network resilience, allowing them to minimize and recover quickly from outages.

Supporting Limited Teams with Out-of-Band Management

One strategy depleted network engineers can use to enhance security and ensure operational continuity is OOB network management. Unlike conventional methods that rely on the primary in-band network, OOB management utilizes an independent, secondary pathway for network management and remediation, which operates separately from the primary in-band network. Even if there is a failure on the main data path due to a cyberattack, an OOB network ensures operations continue without considerable disruption; likewise, network engineers have a reliable means of accessing and restoring the network.

OOB management also allows network engineering teams to swiftly isolate and contain breaches or attacks, locking down the affected parts of the network to prevent bad actors from moving at will and inflicting further damage. Some leading OOB management offerings include additional solutions such as a robust management fabric, which provides engineers with dynamic routing and a unified management framework. With these advanced tools, network engineers can quickly detect, diagnose, and resolve security-related incidents, shutting down or restarting network equipment as needed.

Additionally, network engineers can leverage best-in-class OOB solutions to remotely access IT environments, allowing them to manage, monitor, and remediate network issues from any location. Remote management capabilities are valuable – in fact, 47% of US CIOs and engineers listed the ability to complete network-related tasks remotely as a top initiative to address the talent shortage.

By enabling network teams to work from anywhere through OOB solutions, businesses can support remote and hybrid working practices, opening the doors to a broader talent pool that would otherwise be unavailable due to geographical restraints. Having the ability to hire far and wide for network and other IT talent alleviates pressure on understaffed teams while simultaneously bolstering network resiliency.

AI-Powered Automation: Doing More with Less

AI is another invaluable technology to businesses moving forward in a post-Golden Resignation world. AI’s ability to automate networking tasks is essential; moreover, its value to businesses increases as more bad actors add it to their own tool belt. Cybercriminals are no longer the overweight, Cheeto-dust-covered hackers of the movies sitting in a dark basement typing code. Today, well-organized hacker groups use advanced AI systems trained on machine learning algorithms to execute sophisticated scams and attacks. For networking and security teams to have a chance against these threats, companies must equip them with similar technology.

Organizations can integrate AI into their OOB management strategy, empowering understaffed network professionals to automate many time-consuming processes. For example, AI can automate incident response procedures, accelerating the speed at which threats get detected and nullified. Likewise, shorthanded engineers can use AI to automate management tasks, including network configurations, routine updates, and maintenance. Streamlining these various responsibilities allows people to focus on high-level tasks, transforming them from teams that “put out fires” to teams that innovate and enhance security.

Delaying Workforce Retirement Through Training

Although the reality (and implications) of the Golden Resignation are largely inescapable, there are ways that businesses can soften the wave of retirements. According to a report from Multiverse, 41% of workers would be willing to stay in the labor market if they received better access to training as it pertains to new technologies. As such, organizations should implement continuous training programs on technologies like AI and generative AI for veteran teams.

Should businesses retain their most skilled and experienced personnel for a little longer before they retire, there is a higher likelihood these individuals can pass on more of their industry knowledge to the newer (and smaller) crop of network and security employees. Of course, the need for upskilling should not supersede but coincide with OOB management and AI, as well as other advanced encryption methods or regular vulnerability assessments.