Employee privacy and health is a sleeping giant in the post COVID-19 pandemic. The global workforce is concerned about their jobs and health. The organizations are cooperating with health-screening and tracking measures in the workplace for the employees. The government has issued more than sixty directives for data privacy while responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But how can organizations provide a safe workplace to their employees in a defensible way to privacy regulators? The Privacy impact assessments (PIAs) are a solution to this as it shows how organizations can evaluate employee privacy employing several common use cases found in the mobilizing, stabilize, and strategize phases of the COVID-19 crisis.
Mobilizing
During the mobilization phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of employees shifted to the remote working model. Organizations were unaware and unprepared regarding a lot of things about the COVID-19 pandemic. This thing was clear from the way organizations initially assessed workers who were a risk to others and informed the workers who may have been put at risk. The organizations verified the transition status of the employees and received the first reports of testing for COVID-19.
The COVID-19 privacy guidance published by the regulators identifies key components that the organizations need to look for in the future for the pandemic-response procedures. The procedure includes:
- Narrowly tailored health-screening questionnaires
- Designate authorized people to handle the questionnaires
- Inform screened workers of their rights
- Do not disclose the identity of positive-testing people outside the response team
Stabilize
“How are you working on?” This question is asked millions of times as executives endeavor to connect with the staff and encourage them in this challenging time. In the stabilizing phase of the COVID-19 crisis, organizations around the world are facing a common challenge, that is, a drop in morale, worker energy, and productivity resulting from eminent levels of distress. Organizations need to systematically collect information regarding the morale of the employee and monitor their productivity.
Strategize
As the government begins to lift stay-at-home restrictions, organizations are likely to face new challenges like providing a safe environment as employees return to the workplace. It is important for the organization to screen and track the contagious status of the employees in a least-invasive way while complying with the patchwork of changing global regulations.
To know more about employees’ privacy and health care, attend the Compliance Prime webinar.