Confidentiality in the Workplace

What is the first thing you think of when you think of confidentiality? If you are like most people you think of it in terms of customer and/or clients and not necessarily coworkers. Workplace confidentiality can be defined as keeping the employee, customer and client information private. Organizations tend to take various steps to ensure client information remains confidential however, when it comes to employee information they may not be as particular. Why is this important you ask? Let’s discuss a few reasons why confidentiality is important in the workplace.

For starters, it is everyone’s responsibility to treat all information in the workplace with care and caution including employees. The organization should set the tone on the importance of maintaining a professional attitude at work by refraining from sharing any personal details with fellow colleagues at work. Also, an employee should not disclose any information to a third party that the organization considers sensitive, until and unless the employee has gotten permission from his supervisor regarding the sensitive information.

All employees should know what they have access to in terms of files and materials and they should adhere to them. No files or materials should be shared or given to unauthorized people under no circumstances. In an event sensitive and confidential files reach the hands of an unauthorized person it would be considered a breach of confidentiality and the employee could be terminated for it. Employees also should not be discussing any business dealings with the clients outside of work.

As far as the employer’s responsibility is concerned, any personal or professional details of the employees should be handled carefully. Any and all data related to the personal details of an employee, health data, salary structure, references etc. should be kept safe from prying eyes for if misused can lead to discrimination in the workplace. Only HR department staff members who require the data for certain purposes should be given access to the personal files of the employees.

Maintaining confidentiality inside and outside the workplace is important for several reasons. Should a breach in confidentiality occur lawsuits against the organization may be filed if they feel secret information regarding them have been revealed by the organization or its employees. This can affect a business’s reputation and have other negative repercussions. So it is of the utmost important that the organization and the employees protect information in the workplace.

Ways to Maintain Confidentiality in the Workplace?

The HR department should have guidelines and strategies to ensure that confidentiality in the workplace is maintained. Below are several effective steps that can be taken to ensure the protection of information.

1) Posting policies throughout the workplace.
2) Once the policies are in place communicate the information to all employees, supervisors and managers

3) Training should be provided about the confidentiality issues by providing printouts of the policy and hold meetings teaching the importance of confidentiality to employees and should be done on a regular basis.

Employees should know and be well aware of which actions of theirs will be considered a breach of confidentiality as well is the consequences to deter them from doing so.

With much of the information today being stored electronically methods such as encryption, firewalls and password protection should be adopted to ensure its safety. If you need to dispose sensitive information the employer or the human resource personnel should do it in such a way that there are no potential leaks.

With the privacy policies and guidelines being updated regularly according to new laws devised by the government employers and HR professionals should communicate these changes to the employees to ensure compliance is being adhered to. By maintaining the confidentiality standards in the workplace, the organization not only protects itself from legal woes but improves employee productivity also by providing them with a secure work environment.

References: Aastha Dogra. (February 23, 2012). Confidentiality in the Workplace. In buzzle.com. Retrieved October 7, 2013, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/confidentiality-in-the-workplace.html.