Data privacy is something we pretend to worry about while discussing it on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, where we share every detail of our personal lives and take pictures of all our food.
Of course, there’s a difference between the entire world knowing that you had spaghetti last night and knowing the details of your performance improvement plan and Social Security number. So, while our employees are happy to overshare online, we must keep their information private.
This became more difficult with the digital transformation of Human Resources. In the old days, companies kept employee files in rooms, accessible with the keys only held by one cranky woman named Helen, who left at 2:00 pm every day. And she knew everyone in the company, so you couldn’t easily sneak in and grab your file, let alone someone else’s. It was information security at its finest.
To keep reading, click here: What’s Next in Human Resources Data Privacy and Compliance
Oh my gosh … you knew Helen? She must have moved to your company after she left mine. And she had several twin sisters who worked in finance, engineering records, the travel section, and one was a maintenance supervisor. The most feared, however, was Helen’s Aunt Doris, who was in charge of the secretary pool (although you may not be old enough to remember secretaries); if you wanted something, anything, typed up, you had better be on Doris’s good side and be ready to be very, very polite and deferential … otherwise that critical, time-sensitive document could somehow manage to disappear for a week or more.