Employee Records
Part of Employee self-service tools
Letting employees update appropriate personal details
Decide which employee details suit direct editing, which need review, and how to show the final record and correction path.
Let employees edit a personal detail directly when its use and the effect of a mistake are understood, the employee can identify the right value, and the saved result is clear. Give changes with a greater payroll, identity or access effect a review route. Show the route before submission.
Classify fields by their use
Build a field list with HR, payroll and account administrators. The routes below are examples for local assessment, not universal permissions.
| Detail | Possible route | Question to settle |
|---|---|---|
| Contact address or number | Direct entry with confirmation | Is it also used for account recovery? |
| Emergency contact | Direct entry with a stated purpose | Who can view or remove an old contact? |
| Directory display name | Direct entry or reviewed request | Is it separate from formal employment records? |
| Bank, tax or superannuation details | Controlled process | Who checks the change before it is used? |
| Pay rate or employment basis | Authorised employment-change process | Who approves the terms and effective date? |
A contact number used to recover an account has a different risk from one used only for correspondence. Record actual downstream uses before enabling an edit. Avoid collecting extra information simply because the form has a field for it.
Show what happened
For a direct edit, show the proposed value and the saved result. For a reviewed change, distinguish submitted, awaiting review, approved, rejected and needs more information if those states exist in the process. Give employees a way to return to the request. A form-submission confirmation must not imply that the authoritative record has changed.
For example, if an employee corrects a mailing address and another system sends correspondence, decide who updates that system and how the employee can report a mismatch. The path may be automatic or owned manually; the screen alone does not establish which.
Keep a correction route
Decide who can correct a mistaken submission, whether the old value was already used and which recipient needs the final value. For a pay-related field, have the responsible payroll reviewer check the receiving result and any pay effect.
Where APP 13 applies, OAIC guidance says an APP entity must take reasonable steps to correct personal information it holds when it is satisfied the information is incorrect or an individual requests correction. If a correction request is refused, APP 13 requires written notice with the reasons and available complaint mechanisms.
When assessing a proposed setup, use synthetic or suitably protected accounts to follow an allowed edit and a reviewed request through to their receiving records. Check what the employee sees after rejection or correction, and how someone without sign-in access can seek help. Enable direct editing only when the field’s owner, use and correction route are clear.
Further reading: Chapter 13: APP 13 Correction of personal information (oaic.gov.au).
