By Michelle Quince, Senior accountant at Hive Business
June’s here already! This year seems to be flying by and so much has happened already. There’s been a new royal baby, a royal wedding and the FIFA World Cup is underway (#comeonengland). But there’s one date that we’ve all been anxiously waiting for … the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on 25th May 2018.
For those of us over the age of 30, you may remember a similar level of anxiety in December 1999 when everyone warned us about the Millennium Bug. The experts were concerned that computers wouldn’t be able to cope with “00” as a year and that we would all be thrown into the dark ages. Turns out, we all worried for nothing. We all went to bed on New Year’s Eve and woke up on 01/01/00 with fully functioning VCR’s and Nokia 3310’s.
From an individual’s point of view, I think the same can be said for GDPR. You may have noticed a massive influx of emails asking for your consent to remain on mailing lists shortly before the deadline, but little else appears to have changed. Although I think the vast majority of us are happier now that we are deemed to have control over our own personal information.
On the other hand, for businesses, GDPR has been a bit of a headache. My colleague Marta created a useful infographic outlining the core considerations for businesses back in February. From understanding what is required, to data audits, to educating staff members and on to keeping patients informed, a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to ensure that businesses are compliant with the regulations.
It’s the same for us here at Hive. We are not only controllers of data but, for a lot of our clients, we are also “data processors”. A particular challenge has been ensuring GDPR compliance within our payroll department. Emphasising the line between controller and processor has been key and we have had to change the way in which we communicate with employees. We have recently implemented a fully-compliant, online data store known as PayDashboard:
- Employees are invited to set up their own log-on and password on the PayDashboard portal;
- On payday, the employees will receive notification that their payslips are ready to view;
- They will then be able to log-on and view their payslips and P60 from any device (phone, tablet, PC, etc);
- In addition, employers will also have a log-on where they can monitor their business’ payroll with graphical analysis and intelligent reports.
GDPR has forced us to take a step back and reassess how we communicate with our clients, and we believe that PayDashboard represents an opportunity for you to better understand your business’ staff costs.
Hive has a dedicated team of professionals ready to assist in preparing your business’ payroll. Along with expert advice and accurate, timely calculations, we can also arrange payments to your staff and to HMRC via BACS. If you’d like to find out more about our payroll services, please call us on 01872 300232 or email us at hello@hivebusiness.co.uk.
