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Gender and marital status as mandatory fields in HRIS?

April

Hello;

As our organisation evaluates data fields to include in a future HRIS, there arises the need for clarity on whether the organisation may ask the following from Irish employees or if they might be illegal to request from labour law or GDPR perspective:

-Gender

-Legal Sex

-Marital status

I know it's an enormous topic but I'm really just trying to hone in on the facts.  Allowed or not allowed to ask for these?  (We won't have the option of adding the possible answer of "I'd rather not answer"; we will either include or exclude them altogether). 

Thank you very much and Happy Halloween Jack o lantern.

Parents
  • 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.
Reply
  • 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.
Children
  • 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.