Is your business GDPR compliant? (3 simple tips)

Since GDPR swept across Europe in 2018, there have been a ton of questions surrounding the legislation. Such as:

• What is GDPR?
• How does it affect me as an employer?
• How do I improve my GDPR compliance?

Being one of Ireland’s leading payroll software providers, Thesaurus Software has spent the past four years finding innovative ways to enhance our software to ensure it is fully GDPR compliant.

Let us look at some of these commonly asked questions in more detail.

What is GDPR?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It is a law that ensures that any place or person who has access to your data either has your consent to do so, or for legal purposes.

This can be anything from your personal data such as your name and address, or more sensitive data such as your financial or medical records.

How does this affect me as an employer?

Any data you obtain, store or use from an employee (i.e. PPS number, payroll information, internet usage) must be done so with the employee's consent and in a way that is fair and secure.

Your employees have the right to:

• Access their data
• Rectify their data
• Be informed as to how their data is both obtained and processed
• Erase their data
• Restrict people from processing their data
• Object to their data being used for marketing, scientific or historic research
• Data portability

Not complying with GDPR can result in a data breach. A data breach can be anything from sending a payslip to the wrong employee’s email, to a full-blown cyber-attack resulting in a leak of personal information.

How do I improve my GDPR compliance?

When you sign up to Thesaurus Connect you no longer have to worry about sending the wrong email to an employee, or for personal information getting leaked.

Here are 3 simple tips on how you can use Thesaurus Connect to improve your GDPR compliance.

1. Employee 24/7 Self-Service Portal

Do you often get caught in never-ending email threads about changes to employees’ records? Are your employees hounding you for payslips for their mortgage applications?

With Thesaurus Connect this can all be done by a simple tap on your phone through our innovative smartphone and tablet app. The app allows your employees to have instant access to their payslips from their device that is ready to view, print and even download.

They also have access to HR documents, uploaded by the employer, such as contracts of employment, staff handbook and company updates.

You as the employer can also even restrict specific users from accessing certain data, which only improves your GDPR compliance even further.

Watch this quick 3-minute video on how our Thesaurus Connect mobile app saves you time and money, while improving employee engagement.

2. Integration with payroll software

Employees can also update their personal details whenever they like through the Thesaurus Connect app. This automatically syncs with Thesaurus payroll software, so you no longer have to update details manually – eliminating unnecessary email trails in the blink of an eye!

This aligns with GDPR best practice recommendations, as it provides employees direct access and control to their data from a secure and remote location.

3. Automated Backup

Worrying about cyberattacks are a thing of the past with Thesaurus Connect’s fully secure automated backups.

These backups take place every time you close out of the employer file in Thesaurus software – uploading your employees’ data directly to the cloud.

This means that if your computer becomes damaged or stolen, there will be a backup available to restore all of your data, giving you complete peace of mind.

Data backups improve not only your security, but also the efficiency of running your business.

“My favourite feature of Thesaurus Connect is the free app available to our employees. The app has?great features which include the option for employees to access their own payslips, time off requests and much more. We no longer have to print payslips and hand them out to our employees every pay period.”

- Emma, Megs Fabrication Ltd

Thesaurus Connect also comes with a host of other features for employers, such as annual leave calendars and requests, Revenue payments, and much more.?

With over 330,000 businesses using our software and a 98.8% customer satisfaction rate (from our recent 2021 customer survey), you know you are in safe hands.

It’s time to take your employees’ payroll data to the next level – book a demo with us today.

Looking for further information on GDPR? Check out our webpage on GDPR that provides a more detailed analysis on the topic.

Related articles

• GDPR and Payroll Processing: Do I need consent from my client’s employees
• What happens if I don’t comply with GDPR
• Data Protection complaints increase since introduction of GDPR