Like storing cash under the mattress, relying on familiar yet outdated methods to protect what’s yours often gives the illusion of control, but typically proves to be more risky than it’s worth.
The approach to leave of absence management for many organizations around the country isn’t much different.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether your organization is large or small, relying on complicated spreadsheets that are either locally stored on hard drives or floating somewhere in a shared drive labyrinth is commonplace in HR’s approach to leave.
Relying on short-term disability (STD) providers or antiquated software to manage your leave isn’t much better, with siloed data and security blind spots galore.
While your CFO might be fond of how cheap and familiar Excel docs and Google Sheets may be, or that since you’re paying an STD carrier already it makes sense to have them manage leaves of absence as well, your CIO understands that when it comes to keeping your employee leave data safe, Excel docs and outsourced solutions not designed to manage all types of leave is the equivalent of shoving benjamins under the mattress and hoping nobody breaks in.
HR Data Risks Have Grown - What it Means
A single leave of absence can involve upwards of 20 pieces of personal employee information throughout the journey, ranging from their medical condition to pay rate to supporting documentation with sensitive data on it.
Of course, it would be really nice if employee data risks weren’t a thing in the modern world, but threats to our data aren’t concerned about niceties.
The truth is that HR employee data risks have significantly grown in recent years due to several factors, and this has critical implications for HR leaders and your organization’s operations.
Increased Data Collection and Digitization
Volume and Variety of Data: HR departments now collect and store vast amounts of personal and sensitive data, including payroll information, health records, performance reviews, and personal identification details.
Digital Transformation: The shift to digital platforms for HR functions has expanded the attack surface for cyber threats. Cloud storage, HR management systems, and remote work tools are now integral parts of HR operations. How secure are the leave of absence tools and platforms you’re using today?
Rising Cybersecurity Threats
Sophisticated Cyber Attacks: Cybercriminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to breach data, including phishing, ransomware, and social engineering attacks.
Insider Threats: Employees, whether malicious or negligent, pose a significant risk to data security. Insider threats can be harder to detect and prevent. How educated are your managers on the do’s and don’ts of leave? Are they a risk?
Regulatory and Compliance Pressure
Data Protection Regulations: Laws like GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, and other data protection regulations worldwide impose stringent requirements on data handling and privacy. Non-compliance can result in severe penalties.
Audit and Reporting Requirements: HR departments must ensure they can demonstrate compliance with data protection regulations, requiring robust data management and reporting systems.
Implications for HR Leaders
Enhanced Security Measures: HR leaders must prioritize cybersecurity, implementing strong data protection measures such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and regular security audits.
Employee Training and Awareness: Continuous training programs are essential to educate employees about data security best practices, which is vital to keeping employee leave data secure.
Data Governance and Policy Development: Establishing clear data governance policies, including data minimization, retention, and destruction policies, is crucial. HR leaders must ensure these policies are regularly updated and enforced.
Collaboration with CIO: HR must work closely with the CIO and IT departments to ensure that HR systems are secure and that there is a coordinated response to any data breaches.
Legal and Compliance Alignment: Keeping abreast of changes in data protection laws and ensuring compliance is a continuous process. HR leaders should regularly consult with legal teams to mitigate legal risks.
Incident Response
Planning: Developing and regularly testing an incident response plan is essential. HR leaders need to be prepared to act quickly and effectively in the event of a data breach.
Tilt Recap: Data security threats are only going to rise, and there are major implications for organizations that aren’t addressing them in their approach to leave management. With so much sensitive information involved in a single leave of absence, organizations must look to shore up gaps in their data security and more toward software solutions that can keep their employee data, and organization, safe from serious risks.
Leave Management Outsourcing For Safer Employee Data
Walking up to someone who has shoved bills under their pillow-top for years and asking them to change might be asking a lot.
Change is hard, and giving up control can be even harder.
The risks associated with keeping leave management in-house, or relying on tech solutions not designed specifically for leaves, however, are no longer tenable for most organizations.
Changing your leave management approach to a modern solution, fortunately, is easy.
A modern leave management solution like Tilt does much more than remove the administrative burdens associated with leave of absence management and provide a seamlessly empathetic experience for your employees, it also protects your data.
Tilt goes above and beyond to achieve the necessary security and privacy certifications, keeps sensitive employee information safe and private, and provides a more secure way to administer leave than existing processes that are manual to maintain, susceptible to human error, rely on uninformed employees, and can’t be standardized or scaled.
One of the best things about Tilt is that they store all leave information for me and my team in one, secure platform.
Tilt’s platform houses all leave data and documents under one digital roof, but it also provides manager access so that every stakeholder in every leave of absence is kept in the loop.
Providing managers access to real-time leave insights and educational materials does wonders to bolster the security of your leave data.
We find that managers bring a bit of ego to the role, where they say ‘I've been a manager for 'x' amount of years...I know how to handle a leave of absence.’ What they don't give enough prudence to is that leave of absence has changed in so many ways, regardless of where you're based. Allowing managers to understand what they're required to do and what resources are available in anonymity, not having to raise their hand and say "HR, please help me," has proven to be really valuable.
From data retention and disposal efforts to encryption to multi-factor authentication requirements, Tilt’s emphasis on data security is felt throughout every fiber of the platform.
Tilt also maintains a corporate Information Security program with a dedicated budget and team that covers the entire scope of its operations. Key features include:
- An information security and privacy strategy, including goals and objectives, is adhered to and updated on a regular basis.
- All security documentation, including policies and procedures, is kept up to date.
- Team members receive security awareness training on a regular basis.
- Whistleblower, complaint, and incident reporting processes are available for team members and external users to report issues.
You and your CIO/IT team can dig more into the details of Tilt’s approach to security and compliance here, and if you want to learn more about our SOC 2 Type II compliance, data encryption and more, visit https://trust.hellotilt.com/ and see just how secure your employee leave data can be with Tilt.
Tilt Recap: Change is hard, but organizations are becoming more aware of how frighteningly vulnerable their leave process is to their employee data being compromised. Tilt’s technology has been built from the ground up with data security at the forefront. Leveraging Tilt for your leave management needs means consistently administered leaves, safe and secure data, and relief for CIOs and HR teams across the country.
Tilt is leading the charge in all things leave of absence management through easy-to-use tech and human touch. Since 2017, our proprietary platform and Empathy Warriors have been helping customers make leave not suck by eliminating administrative burdens, keeping companies compliant, and providing a truly positive and supportive leave of absence experience for their people.
