First, a little background;
Recently the company I work for implimented an on-line feature that allows employees to access their payroll information. All of it, like your paycheck stub. I requested to be omitted from this service, stating that I hadn’t requested it, and that recieving my pay stubs in the mail was good enough for me.
The computers we use at work are multi-user machines, and there are three of them in the same room. Right next to each other. A printer is behind us, and so is the door. This makes it difficult to protect one’s password.
Here’s the official reply, edited to protect others ID;
We have reviewed your request to be excluded from accessing the Pay Stub Online feature. This application was developed without provisions for exclusion, therefore, we are unable to remove your access. Like the W-4 Modeler, Benefits Connection and PS/SP Online, The Pay Stub Online is part
of an overall strategy to make it easier for employees to access data about themselves or update their data whenever they need to.
Given that strategy, security of information is important and critical for success. Before any new HR feature is added to the Web, a thorough risk analysis is done to make sure that the data is secure. While there are system checks in place, employees also have responsibility for securing
their data at their workplace. It is understandable that if you share a computer with others that you would want to make sure that your pay information is confidential. Your information is tied to your CAI and not to anyone else’s. What you must do, however, is make sure you log off of the
computer before someone else logs on, and make sure you don’t walk away from your computer while you are in the middle of accessing your information. For more information about security of data at ******* and what you can do, see
the Information Protection Web site:*************
Note that they don’t address the fact that there are other people in the room, beside and behind you, and the password to access this info is the same as the domain password used to log onto the computer. We are required to use these machines to enter time logs and read e-mail, etc.
My question is, can a company, legally and ethically, compel it’s employees to put private personal information at risk?
Sorry about the long post. I’m annoyed. :mad:
Peace,
mangeorge
I hear what you’re saying but this isn’t too different from keeping your payroll info in a filing cabinet. Like a filing cabinet computer security can be good or bad. If it’s well implemented it can be safer than most locked filing cabinets.
In the end, however, I don’t know that you have a ‘right’ to private payroll info. Most companies do this to avoid hassles of one employee bitching that another employee gets paid more but doesn’t deserve it.
Further, if you’re paid via tax dollars (teachers, police, senator) your paycheck is available for anyone to see. I’ve been to web sites that list every teacher’s pay in a district. Shareholders are allowed to know the compensation package of company executives (I’m not sure how far ‘down’ a corporate ladder a shareholder could reasonably expect to know the salaries of the employees).
In short, I agree with you in that I wouldn’t want my salary available to anyone and everyone but I don’t see how there is a legal or ethical obligation on a company’s part to hide it for you. I imagine they could institute a new ‘policy’ that all salaries are out in the open if they wished even if it would open a whole can of worms for them.
I guess you just need to be careful to block your screen when viewing this stuff and change your password alot.
Well its not very reasurring, but kind of loike jeff_42 said about the filing cabinets. If someone wants to know your payroll information, they could very easily beat you to your mailbox on the day your paycheck is scheduled to arrive. Computer systems are not very secure, but you have to remember that nothing else is either.
I don’t see the point of it being online. Like many people, I get a paycheck stub in the mail. I can’t think of any benefit to me in having that info online, even if nobody else ever saw it. I look at the stub when I get it, then file it away. No computer needed.
I suggest finding the personal info of the person who implemented this idea & posting that all over the web. See how they like it.
Exactly! What’s the point of my salary, profit sharing, and W2 info being online?
I would feel differently had they offered the service to those who wanted it, but they didn’t. They said “Here it is, and you can’t do anything about it.” And that’s the crux of my objections. We’ll see about that.
And I think their statement that they can’t exclude specific employees is BS. Any online service can be blocked. I’m not finished with them yet.
Peace,
mangeorge
The point that is being missed here, is that it is as much THIER information as YOUR information. If they want to broadcast your salary, they can. If you don’t like it, look elsewhere for work.
Employee information is kept confidential because it would just upset other employees if it was not. If you knew Joe made 3K more than you for the same job and had been there 1 year less you would freak.
I would be concerned about my Social Security Number. My compnay used to mail out pay stubs with SSN on them until folks told them it was probably not such a hot idea. And that is definitely something they have responsibility to keep private.
My company started doing this, too. Fortunately, it does maintain an “exclusion” list so those of us who want to can continue getting a hard copy of our paychecks.
I agree, I think it stinks. Most people where I work do have their own computer, but there is no secure printer or anything like that around. Even if there were, I want a paystub printed on company letterhead. If they someday “forget” to put my 401K deduction in an actual 401K plan, I want something official from the company stating that the funds were removed from my paycheck. I also want hard copy records of vacation time accrued, benefits, etc.
I recently found out something about my companies practices I do not like.
I work in tech support for a national ISP. Because occasionally you get an extremely angry customer we are not required to give out our full names, even if the customer asks - we give them the case number and our name is on the records for that case, if I ever fuck a customer over management can find out who did it from the case number, which we are required to give out to the customers. Some techs give out their full names, I don’t because I knew someone at a previous job who had a customer research his address and started sending threatening and harrassing letters to his home address, ordering stuff COD for him, etc.
A few months ago they started requiring us to put the customer’s email address in the contact info. We were told when the case was closed a survey would be sent to the customer to ask them how good of a job was done, etc. Didn’t think anything of it, until a customer called asking for me by name, complaining that I closed his case when it was not fixed. He forwarded us the email that notified him of this, and I was shocked to see that the form letter said, basically -
“Hi, my name is Badtz Maru, and I have closed your case #111111. Please contact us at xxx-xxx-xxxx if there is a problem”.
(of course my real name isn’t Badtz Maru, but it did have my full name)
BTW, the case was one I had opened almost a year ago, which was then escalated to another department that left it open by mistake. I was asked by my supervisor to go through and close out all these old cases, since I took the initial case they were still technically assigned to me.
I complained immediately to my supervisor who said he would look into it - I suggested changing my name in the database to Badtz M. for my anonymity - there are only about a dozen people with my last name in the USA and none with the same exact last name. I realized I have given my full name to hundreds of customers, many of which will be angry that their case was closed.
