Negosentro|How Can Small Business Owners Protect Employee Information?|When your business was a baby, it was very small and compact, consisting of you and maybe an employee or two. As all babies do, though, it has grown and gotten bigger as the years have passed, and your baby business is no longer as little as it used to be…and now you’re in charge of a whole fleet of staff. Congratulations! This is the mark of a great businessperson, but it also ties you up a little more than it used to. Sure, you’re still the owner and manager of the company, but instead of an infant company to raise, you now have a household of employees and staffers to take care of. There is so much to think about while you’re managing employees, but safeguarding their personal information should be a top priority.
Protecting Their Security
In this day and age, it seems like everyone is trying to collect your data and do something heinous with it. As a small business owner, you need to choose the right software for you and take the treatment of your staff very seriously and you want to keep them as happy as you can. Part of ensuring their happiness is protecting their personal information.
Secure Accounts
If computers and a common network domain are part of your company’s setup, then making sure that everyone has a unique login is essential. This is not only for being able to monitor their activity and ensure they’re not violating any of your rules but also for their own security. Imagine sharing a computer with someone that you don’t know very well. Would you feel comfortable doing things like writing emails or checking bank account balances? A computer is one of the most personal pieces of equipment that you can own, and even if you don’t encourage doing anything personal on work machines there is still a risk.
Managing Accounts
Do you know what privileged identity management is? In a nutshell, it’s like a super-admin account; you are the one who controls the admin accounts. This means that you have the power to add, delete or restrict permissions for each user. This is the kind of power that should be restricted to maybe two people: Yourself and the technology person.
Network Filtering
Your at-home WiFi network might allow things like seemingly unsavory websites to slip through the cracks for personal use, but you can’t afford that kind of lax activity on the job. As your business grows and you start to upgrade your software and hardware, think also about hiring a network filtering service. There are plenty of different types for all kinds of companies. For example, Securly is one that is perfect for a school domain, while DNSfilter might work better for a professional domain. If someone goes to a website that could be considered fishy, the page is blocked by the filtering service. These can be adapted to fit your needs — if you don’t want everyone on Facebook, for example, but your social media manager needs to for their job, you can block social media pages for everyone except them.
Be Organized
Safety begins with you, which makes it your responsibility entirely to be sure that staff information is protected. Beyond the tools you can use online, don’t forget about the smaller, more common-sense ways that you can keep employee information safe.
- Anything that contains sensitive information on paper needs to be locked away. This can be in a filing cabinet or another locked area, but don’t leave anything potentially dangerous sitting around in case of prying eyes.
- Encrypt and password-protect all online records. This is one of those places where a privileged identity management account will be handy.
- Shred and securely delete all records that you no longer need.
Now that your baby has grown up a little bit, you can focus your attention on the people who help nurture it every day. Do what you can as the business owner to prevent identity theft and keep your employees safe.
