Today identity security extends far beyond your internal workforce. Most organisations now rely on an extended network of contractors, suppliers, and B2B partners — all of whom need digital access to critical systems and data. Yet many identity governance programmes still focus solely on full-time employees.
That’s where Non-Employee Risk Management (NERM) comes in.
Non-Employee Risk Management (NERM) is the process of identifying, governing, and securing digital identities for users who sit outside your organisation’s HR system. These include:
These users are essential — but often managed inconsistently, through spreadsheets, emails, or siloed systems. The result?
NERM introduces the automation, visibility, and control needed to manage these non-employee identities with the same rigour as your employees — strengthening both security and compliance.
As organisations expand their digital ecosystems, the number of third-party and partner identities grows rapidly. Cloud adoption, supplier collaboration, and outsourced service models make manual management impossible to scale.
Without NERM, enterprises face:
Auditors and regulators increasingly demand consistent controls across all identities — not just employees. Whether you’re in banking, higher education, retail, healthcare, or utilities, NERM has become essential for reducing risk and maintaining compliance.
A financial institution depends on hundreds of third-party IT consultants and service partners. By integrating its vendor management system into its identity governance platform, it automated onboarding and access reviews, reducing dormant accounts by 70% and ensuring compliance with internal audit requirements.
An insurance brokerage firm relies on independent agents and partner firms to serve regional customers. NERM ensures every external user has time-limited, sponsor-approved access to quoting and claims systems, maintaining FCA and GDPR compliance while reducing manual admin by 60%.
Universities collaborate with visiting academics, research partners, and contractors. With NERM, they can now automate joiner–mover–leaver processes for these non-employee identities, ensuring access aligns with academic schedules and funding timelines — without increasing IT workload.
A large retailer hires temporary staff during seasonal peaks. NERM automates onboarding for these short-term roles, granting immediate access on day one and automatically removing it when contracts expire — maintaining efficiency without compromising security.
A healthcare provider that works with agency nurses and temporary clinicians now uses NERM to enforce time-bound, policy-based access. This ensures patient records remain protected while supporting staffing flexibility across multiple facilities.
A regional energy provider works with outsourced engineering firms and IT contractors. NERM delivers complete visibility and control over who can access critical systems, helping the organisation comply with industry-specific cybersecurity regulations and reduce the risk of insider threats.
Telecoms operators face increased scrutiny under the UK Telecommunications (Security) Act (TSA), which requires operators to mitigate supply-chain and access risks. NERM enables telecoms providers to manage the full lifecycle of vendor, contractor, and partner identities — ensuring compliance with the TSA’s mandate for continuous risk assessment, least-privilege access, and rapid deprovisioning when relationships end.
Many organisations now operate within complex partner networks. For example:
In each case, NERM ensures partner and B2B identities are governed consistently — automating provisioning, enforcing least-privilege access, and delivering full audit trails without disrupting collaboration.
At ProofID, we help organisations across financial services, higher education, retail, healthcare, and utilities gain control over non-employee and partner risk through our advisory, implementation, and managed services.
Our experts can help you:
If you’re unsure who’s accessing your systems — or how long they’ve had that access — it’s time to take a closer look at Non-Employee Risk Management. Let’s make every identity in your ecosystem — employee or not — visible, governed, and trusted.
Book a demo to see how ProofID can help your organisation automate governance and secure every identity — from contractors and suppliers to B2B partners and collaborators.
1 “93 % of organisations had two or more identity-related breaches in the past year.” CyberArk+2CyberArk+2
2 “In 2022, 20 % of data breaches were linked to third parties.” IBM
3 “Dormant service accounts with privilege were found in more than 70 % of enterprise environments.” scworld.com