Workforce Identity

Workforce Identity is the management and protection of the digital identities of employees, external staff and partners who access an organization's applications, data and systems as part of their work. The term covers accounts, roles, permissions and authentication characteristics over the entire lifecycle from joining to leaving.

Typical building blocks are a central directory or identity provider, Single Sign-On (SSO), multi-factor authentication, automated provisioning and governance processes such as recertifications. Its counterpart is Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM): while workforce identity manages a known, contractually bound user group, CIAM addresses customers with self-registration, consent management and very high user numbers.

The term is also known as a product designation: Okta uses it in the name of its IAM product line for employees. In professional terms, however, workforce identity is a vendor-neutral category used by analysts and vendors alike for the identity management of an organization's own staff, frequently also referred to as workforce IAM. Workforce identity is a core area of Identity Security.