Protecting Confidential HR Records with Document Management System
The confidentiality and security of employees’ private information are prone to most legal issues in the corporate world. Such information is ought to be kept safe from any unauthorized access. This includes social security numbers, medical information, payment information, payroll accounts, and other information that might require the inclusion of the employee in a protected class. It is imperative that these are stored and documented separately from other employee records. This helps ensure limited access by third-party individuals that might use the information to put the employee to harm.
The protection of HR confidential records can be done in two ways. One, using a paper-based filing system, which requires the creation of a separate and secure place for filing sensitive employee information. Access can be done with electronic locks and computerized security systems. Two, one can opt for a document management system, which utilizes tools such as passwords and access control in providing access to information stored inside. Limiting the potential for exposure to sensitive information helps protect an organization from making decisions that appear discriminatory to the employees.
Types of confidential HR records
1. Medical information:
This includes medical exams. insurance information, drug test results, worker compensation information relating to illness or injury, disability information, and sick leave application.
2. Record of employment:
Record of employment includes information such as inclusion in a protected class, social security number, and birth date. Records of employment are key when proving non-discriminatory and fair organizational hiring practices. Additionally, the records of employment should be kept separate from other information to prevent the use of such information by a manager in a discriminatory way. Other examples of this are:
- Police Clearance
- NBI Clearance
- BIR tax contributions and withholding certificates
- SSS, Philhealth and Pag-ibig contributions and withholding certificates
- Employment Contracts
- Waivers and other policy acceptance documents
3. Payroll information:
Ensuring the confidentiality of payroll information helps observe employees' privacy. Payroll information includes salary, payroll decisions, tax deductions, and the benefits that the employee gets. While there’s no legal requirement to have this information separate, it is wise for a company to ensure that it is kept separate.
4. Workplace investigations and reviews
When an organization conducts an assessment or investigation, it is imperative that the results remain undisclosed to anyone, including employees associated with the review or investigation.
Important document management system features and benefits for HR
- Secure central repository for HR files
- Ensure the easy retrieval and storage of employee reports
- Enhanced search capabilities for faster retrieval of HR records
- Permission-based access to prevent unauthorized viewing of documents
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality and indexing capabilities to convert scanned documents to text, making retrieval possible
- Audit Trail Feature to track users who viewed, accessed, and downloaded files.
- Customizable reports for generating insights from HR data
Archive One for HR Teams
Before settling on a document management system that will be perfect for your HR department, it is important to ensure that it meets your set criteria to ensure easy adoption and use.
Archive One is a document management system that boasts of features that meet the needs of an HR department. With Archive One, companies are able to easily centralize HR documents, minimize compliance risk, protect documents, and can even integrate with other systems. The system ensures the constant tracking and monitoring of human resource documents. It works with various types of files and formats ranging from employee reviews, sick leaves, employee requests, cover letters, and resumes. It also allows users to capture documents from the desktop, adding notes to any documents stored with its auditors' notes function, secure documents by role-based access, and by keeping audit logs and version history.
Archive One is a document management system (DMS) designed to help companies easily classify, store, secure, and retrieve essential company documents that are needed for retention and audits. With our partners' help, we provide an end-to-end document management solution from scanning to document storage at a highly competitive price.
