I'm the only sysadmin at a small company of about 80 users. We primarily use Microsoft services, I normally work from the office, and I only take my work laptop home occasionally. I also haven't been issued a work phone.
Some employees work evenings and weekends, so I'm wondering how to handle situations such as account lockouts, password resets, suspected account compromise, or a lost device outside normal working hours.
At the moment I have a standard account, bug@company, and a separate Global Administrator account, bug.admin@company. I'm considering either allowing the admin account on my phone or assigning the necessary administrative roles to my normal account. Neither option feels ideal. What would be a sensible, secure approach, and how should the company define its after-hours support expectations?
3 Answers
Put the process in writing and route requests through a ticketing system. An after-hours request should normally require the employee to notify their manager, and only business-stopping incidents should escalate immediately. The company should provide a managed laptop or other approved remote-access setup if it genuinely expects you to respond away from the office. Otherwise, the documented answer can simply be: use self-service tools where available and wait until support hours.
Avoid doing privileged administration from a personal phone, and don’t give your everyday account broad permanent privileges just to make emergencies easier. Keep the administrator account separate, use role-based access and just-in-time elevation if available, and maintain properly secured emergency access accounts. Any remote administration should use company-managed equipment and an approved VPN or management workstation.
First, establish whether after-hours support is actually part of your job. If the company wants 24/7 coverage, that needs to be an explicit policy with defined severity levels, staffing, equipment, and compensation. Otherwise, requests can wait until the next business day. Don’t quietly create an on-call service by making yourself available for free; once users learn you respond, they’ll expect it every night and weekend.
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