How The Right Employee & Labor Relations Technology Can Prevent Data Breaches

Back in 2018, the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, or NCCIC, an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, admonished HR administrators that the targeting of Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, applications and HR business management systems by cybercriminals was on the rise. Given that as consumers we are inundated with data breach debacles and security snafus in the media constantly, it often goes in one ear and out the other. However, employee data can be especially vulnerable when it is stored in a myriad of places, such as in a payroll database, HRM systems, share drives, in the Cloud, and so on.

Data Breaches Cost a Lot More than Money

According to Danielle Vanderzanden, an attorney at Ogletree Deakins in Boston, data breaches cause enormous liability. In fact, according to IBM’s 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average total of a data breach costs a company approximately $3.86 million! However, Vanderzanden also points out that breaches can result in other vulnerabilities that are harder to quantify for an organization, resulting in reputational damage or a direct hit to its brand.

You must also consider the stringent requirements mandated by HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, since non-compliance can result in penalties. Also, given that state laws independently dictate identity theft liability for employers, you must be aware of the laws that govern employees and/or users in the state that your company operates in. States such as Massachusetts and California have passed data privacy legislation, but not all have.

Beat a Breach by Beefing Up Security

A starting point in minimizing risk exposure is to centralize your employee data and files; for example, having this information dispersed across individual hard drives or mobile devices makes it very unwieldy to keep track of. For this reason, ease of collaboration is always high on HR departments’ priority lists. Lost spreadsheets, poor security, and single-user systems are a big timewaster, but if you have a secure central repository of information, you can easily keep tabs on, store, and share case documentation. By consolidating the locations of this data and restricting access to just a handful of users, you can [almost] singlehandedly decrease your company’s chances of a catastrophic data breach.

The fact is that sensitive HR data needs more than just a few protocols in place—it requires a full-scale protection plan while in transit, at rest, and in asynchronous backup mode. Other features that can prove essential in preventing breaches are geolocation disaster recovery, nightly backups of your data, role-based security, and 256-byte encryption hosted in a distributed Microsoft Azure data center, all of which are offered with the right, robust Labor & Employee Relations or HR management software.

LaborSoft’s innovative technology is one of many integral solutions that keep your business, in business. Our employee relations analytics, case management workflows, and our central repository of documentation streamlines case management to mitigate risk of operational bottlenecks, costly lawsuits, and legal ramifications stemming from HR issues and complaints. This sensitive data requires that maximum security protocols are in place and that your information is protected at all times. Contact us for a customized demonstration and learn how LaborSoft can help you improve communications, build a more collaborative, safe, and supportive workplace, while reducing the likelihood of costly litigation.

Build a more collaborative, safe, and supportive workplace, while reducing the likelihood of costly litigation. Contact LaborSoft for a customized demo.