IAM 101: Lifecycle Management – Joiners, Movers, and Leavers Done Right

TL;DR

Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) governs the entire digital identity journey—from onboarding new employees to adjusting access when they change roles, to securely deactivating accounts when they leave. This “Joiners, Movers, and Leavers” process is critical to both security and operational efficiency. When mismanaged, it leads to overprovisioned users, dormant accounts, compliance failures, and insider threats. This article breaks down the core lifecycle stages, shows how automation can fix the chaos, and offers practical strategies drawn from real enterprise deployments.

🔍 Background

After 15 years in IAM, I’ve learned this: the lifecycle is where most identity programs succeed—or completely fall apart.

You can have MFA, PAM, and Zero Trust. But if former employees still have access, or if contractors sit dormant in your HR system, your “secure perimeter” is full of holes.

The lifecycle process—commonly called JML (Joiners, Movers, Leavers)—is one of the most overlooked pillars in Identity and Access Management. It should be simple. In practice? It’s often a tangled web of manual tickets, disconnected systems, and tribal knowledge.

This post will help you fix that.

👥 The Three Stages of Lifecycle Management

🔹 1. Joiners – Onboarding Users Securely

Joiners are new hires, contractors, interns, or vendors who need accounts and access. This is your first chance to make a secure and smooth first impression.

Best Practices:

• Trigger provisioning from your source of truth (HRIS like Workday, SAP, or BambooHR)
• Automatically assign access based on role, department, location
• Require MFA enrollment at first login
• Limit access to least privilege from day one

✅ Example: A new marketing associate is hired. Their role triggers automatic creation of email, Slack, Adobe, and SharePoint access. MFA and training are enforced before access is granted.

🔹 2. Movers – Managing Internal Changes

Movers are people who shift roles, departments, locations, or teams. Without a process, movers accumulate access—leading to “permission bloat” and audit nightmares.

Best Practices:

• Use real-time attribute updates (title, department, manager) from HR
• Automatically adjust group memberships, entitlements, and app access
• Remove no-longer-needed access as part of each move
• Trigger a re-certification or approval flow for sensitive access

✅ Example: A finance analyst moves to sales ops. Finance access is revoked, CRM access is granted, and access to reporting tools is adjusted automatically.

🔹 3. Leavers – Offboarding Without Loose Ends

Leavers include employees who resign, are terminated, or complete contracts. This is where poor lifecycle processes turn into real security risks.

Best Practices:

• Termination in HR triggers immediate deprovisioning
• Disable SSO and privileged accounts within minutes
• Archive email and files where applicable
• Reclaim licenses, devices, and security tokens
• Notify managers and stakeholders

✅ Example: A contractor finishes their engagement. Their end date in HR disables all accounts within 15 minutes, notifies IT, and removes their access from Zoom, Jira, and AWS.

🧠 Why Lifecycle Management Matters

Done right, identity lifecycle management results in:

And when it goes wrong?

A 2023 study by IBM found that 60% of insider threats originated from improperly deprovisioned or over-privileged users, many of whom had changed roles or left entirely.

⚙️ Automating the Lifecycle

🔄 Step 1: Integrate with Your HR System

Your HRIS (Workday, SuccessFactors, UKG, etc.) should be your source of truth. Every create/change/terminate action should begin there.

🤖 Step 2: Use Your IAM Platform to Drive Logic

Platforms like Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, SailPoint, and Saviynt can:

• Map attributes to access policies
• Enforce Just-in-Time provisioning
• Connect to SaaS apps via SCIM, API, or connectors
• Manage lifecycle events as workflow logic

🔍 Step 3: Monitor, Review, Certify

Access should never be “set it and forget it.” Build into your lifecycle:

• Scheduled access reviews
• Real-time deprovisioning on exit
• Manager recertification flows on move events

🧱 Building a Scalable Lifecycle Framework

Here’s a framework I’ve used in enterprise IAM programs:

🏛️ Real-World Lessons from the Field

I once consulted for a healthcare org where access removal took 3–5 days due to manual ServiceNow tickets. During that lag, former employees still had access to PHI. We implemented HR-triggered provisioning with SailPoint + Okta, reducing offboarding time to under 15 minutes—and passed their next HIPAA audit cleanly.

Another client used a shared spreadsheet for managing contractor access. You can guess what happened: hundreds of active accounts for people who hadn’t worked there in years.

Lifecycle failures aren’t hypothetical. They’re happening daily—and they’re avoidable.

📚 Cited Study

According to a 2023 Ponemon Institute report, organizations that automated identity lifecycle processes reduced insider threat-related incidents by 45% and saw a 28% drop in audit violations tied to excessive access.

🧭 Final Thoughts

Lifecycle management isn’t flashy, but it’s foundational. It’s where automation, governance, and Zero Trust meet. When done well, JML enables:

• Tighter security
• Better compliance
• Happier employees and IT teams

The trick is to start small—integrate HR, automate basic onboarding/offboarding, and grow into adaptive access and recertification.

IAM isn’t just about protecting access—it’s about controlling it from beginning to end.

🚀 Up Next in the Series:

👉 IAM 101: Single Sign-On (SSO) – The Magic of One Login