| Reprinted, by Amy Dufrane, Ed.D., SPHR, CAE – HRCI, CEO HR teams and the software they deploy gather thousands of data points from employees over the course of their time at the organization. We are finding new ways to use that data to improve the employee experience and our own workforce planning. However, that opportunity doesn’t come without risk: The more data you collect, the more dangerous a data breach could be to your organization and your employees. Here are three steps you can take to improve the safety of your data. Reach out to your peers in IT. Cross-pollination between HR and IT is essential for understanding the ways data can be collected, stored, used — or misused. What weaknesses exist in your stack? What practices do they suggest for strengthening data safety protocols? Assess the data you have. HR collects and stores several types of data. Some record keeping is regulated by law, like candidate application storage. Other data isn’t. How much employee engagement data have you collected, for instance? Do you have data from pulse surveys? Assess the types of data you have, and draft some policies on how long and where to store it securely. Workshop updated policies. Most data breaches are accidental, but you can develop processes that minimize their occurrence. Hackers can spoof an email from leadership, for example. If someone in HR with access to sensitive employee data receives an email asking for access, how do they respond? Workshop an official channel with authentication requirements, for data access requests. |
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