One of the most important things that you can offer clients and customers who trust you with their business, is confidentiality. Keeping their information safe is up to you, and it can be defined as keeping information from everyone who deals with your business private. You can take the right number of steps to ensure any information that comes your way is completely confidential, and it’s not just clients. Your employees come to you with the view of your business being a safe place for them. Not only do you need to ensure that they are comfortable sharing their information with you, but you have to ensure that they know you’ll keep it safe.
Confidentiality is going to make or break a business. Without it, no one from the inside out will trust you. All information that comes through your business doors should be treated with the utmost care and respect, and every employee should learn and understand that disclosing the information isn't going to be looked upon favorably. If you are working in healthcare, you’ll find that legally, you need to have your staff sign contracts that include confidentiality clauses. If you are then sued, any lawyer will be able to get the keys to obtaining the complete electronic medical record of a patient or employee necessary to complete a case. Maintaining the right attitude at work is also important, and that means working on confidentiality first.
Employees must know which files and information that they are permitted to access. They should have to go through the best possible training on compliance and confidentiality and they should be instructed how to handle it if information goes missing. This is because if it reaches the wrong hands, it’s a breach of confidentiality and they can be dismissed for it. This dismissal can go on their record and that should be enough for confidentiality to be important to them. Alongside this, your employees should understand that any information shared outside of the workplace is a serious breach. It’s why confidentiality in the workplace is so important.
As an employer, you are in charge of ensuring that your employees have their information set aside and confidential from each other and even from you. You should only have the information you need and nothing more, and data that relates to personal information, references, health and salary should be kept in the capable and trustworthy hands of your HR department. Your employees should only have their information shared under the strictest of needs and no more. Confidentiality is important for a range of reasons, including:
Without confidentiality, a customer could file a suit against you for not protecting their information properly.
It can be damaging to your business to note that confidentiality has been broken.
Clients won’t trust you if they know that you are unable to keep their information a secret - the way that it should be.
Your reputation will suffer if you haven't kept information you promised to be quiet, quiet.
The next thing that you have to do is learn how to maintain that confidentiality in the workplace. Some of the steps that you take include the following:
Preventing the misuse of information is important. Everyone from the top of the chain of management to the admin and the HR department has to take the correct steps to prevent personal information being misused.
The appropriate storage can be used to ensure that information isn't lost or accidentally destroyed in flooding or fires. It’s one of the best ways to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of your records.
Create policies that explain the outcomes if confidentiality is not adhered to. When you create these policies and procedures, you then need to train your staff on how to use them and what happens if these are breached. This training shouldn't be a one-time thing. They should be held on a regular basis so that everyone is regularly refreshed about how to remain smart about the information for which they’ve entrusted.
Storing any information electronically needs to be properly password protected and you need to invest in firewalls and software that will help you to maintain the confidentiality of those who you hold information for.
Your working environment is going to be far better if you know that you are keeping up with training for your staff and the confidentiality of all who have supplied information to you. Be smart about it and you can ensure that your workplace is protected as much as possible.
