Personal Info
HRCalico
582 Posts
I know this topic has been covered before and has taken on many forms, but I'm posting anyway . . . it's a nice, quiet RAINY day here.
My president asked me this morning for a list of salaried employees and their spouses and kids. When I asked why, he said he just wanted it.
I went with the funny feeling in my gut and explained that I keep a pretty tight reign on personal information and that I could go through the files and get that info but if they didn't have their family on insurance, I wouldn't necessarily know and I'd have to go around and ask. Which means they'd want to know why, and I wouldn't have an answer.
We're only 73 employees (on our way down to 71 most likely and unfortunately due to lack of work) so pretty much everybody knows everybody. And only 10 or so on salary. I was just going on principle, I guess.
Do you guys think I did the right thing?
Confidential to LarryC - TWINS ALL THE WAY! Oh, heck, I'll just send you an e-mail.
My president asked me this morning for a list of salaried employees and their spouses and kids. When I asked why, he said he just wanted it.
I went with the funny feeling in my gut and explained that I keep a pretty tight reign on personal information and that I could go through the files and get that info but if they didn't have their family on insurance, I wouldn't necessarily know and I'd have to go around and ask. Which means they'd want to know why, and I wouldn't have an answer.
We're only 73 employees (on our way down to 71 most likely and unfortunately due to lack of work) so pretty much everybody knows everybody. And only 10 or so on salary. I was just going on principle, I guess.
Do you guys think I did the right thing?
Confidential to LarryC - TWINS ALL THE WAY! Oh, heck, I'll just send you an e-mail.
Comments
Regarding your president, how about asking him, "When people ask me why I need to know this information, what would be an honest answer I can give them?" Not knowing the man, I can't say whether that would offend him or not. I would think not, UNLESS he has less than admirable motives.
This would be an easier situation if it was just about anyone else in the company, but you probably report to him, which might put you sideways with him if you don't provide it.
I would tell him what I knew without looking at the health insurance information. In our shop, we all know each other pretty well, even if I cannot think of all the spouse and children's names, I know who has them and how many. I would think that information would be readily available in a small company through normal interaction both on and off the job.
I would have provided the information on these ten people, if I had it, but would also tell him what has been suggested by others.
Maybe he's buying everyone halloween costumes, although I doubt it.
Our reduction will be among those who were recently hired on a temp basis, sorry to have misled. Part of my concern is that I don't like to have unnecessary lists floating around for unknown reasons. I'm not even on the list - I'm hourly.
Providing the info really isn't a problem, and I do trust my prez, although we're having some difficulty organization-wide with what I call "appropriate communication". When you're a 20 man shop (like we used to be), everybody knows pretty much everything anyway, so it has been difficult to get out of the habit of discussing things with people who don't have a need to know.
Since our co. is like a small town within our small town, I tell new hires in orientation that I keep a tight reign on personal info. It wasn't a matter of just compiling info from the files as some employees don't carry insurance, so I don't know all their details (I've been here less than a year).
I did sit down and was able to do an off the top of my head list without having to ask anybody. I didn't provide family member names since I don't know all of them, and I just provided numbers of children.
Again, thank you to everybody who posted. I was simply curious to see what the forum would say.