The question to be asked is, why do you need the information? If you collect it, what will you do with it? And if the information isn't complete, can it nonetheless be useful (presumably you feel not if 'I'd rather not say' is being removed)?

We have no right to just collect information that is personal or sensitive, unless there is a good business reason for doing so.

And if there is, you just need to communicate that to your staff in a way that they will find compelling, and decide how you'll deal with anyone who chooses not to say.

Good luck.

Nina

In reply to Nina Waters:

Hi Nina and thank you for your reply. This makes a lot of practical sense. Would it be safe to assume the same would apply to employees in the UK? I can see that the bottom line is we will remove it if there is no business purpose for having it from the onset.

In reply to April:

Hi April,

There have been a few discussions here related to HRIS/HMRC/payroll over the years (UK context). If you use the search they'll come up.

Hi April
There may be something that you have to report on ie Gender Pay Discrimination, so you would need gender.
I cannot think of any required reporting that refers to either of the other two so both legal sex (what's in someone's pants) and marital status (how they live) I think are over-stepping the mark. (And to be honest, there are some things about people I'd really rather not know!)

I would not include either of them in an HRIS as fields to have.

I am aware that next of kin could give some insight into marital status but that is as a buy product of NOK and not because it was a data field. You wouldn't do a report on NOK.

Best of luck with it all.

In reply to Steve Bridger:

True- there are some good ones in there. Thank you, Steve.

In reply to Deborah:

Well put. Very helpful. Thank you, Deborah!

Legal sex and Marital status are in our HRIS as they are required information for HMRC for tax purposes (used to determine whether someone is eligible for the Marriage Allowance for example).

This is a really interesting question and it's getting me to think. I do a lot of HR tech work so I am wondering if I need to delve more deeply into the whole area of mandatory fields and non mandatory fields- I've worked with some clients who don't have mandatory fields and the data is poor as a result. Whilst I'd expect freedom for some areas, core data like personal information like this I would expect to be mandatory and also, very rarely to ever be challenged by an employee, as long as the options available were sensitive and inclusive and it was clear what the data was going to be used for.

You might need to reassure employees that you have done a data impact assessment and what that means legally and ethically and reassure them about who has access to this data and when it will ever be used and if it is always attributable or anonymised and explain any different in-country requirements.

I would expect both fields usually to be there ....but as I say it's making me think.

In reply to Sharon:

Unless there is a business case for any data on a person, it should not be included.
For example, Marital status, if needed by HMRC, can be obtained from the employee by HMRC. In my view, HMRC should not be asking a company or organisation to provide this. The same applies to any other organisational request of another.
If there is a legal reporting requirement, not a board requirement, then that would be a sound reason, e.g. to confirm relative pay status between different variations in the human condition, from disability to the myriad of sexual orientations.
So, no: all you need is their first and last name and possibly middle names to distinguish between people of the same first and last name. You could use date of birth instead of middle names, but that is not required either, as each employee has a unique identification code within the organisation.