A member of Addleshaw Goddard's HR team has mistakenly emailed every trainee's performance ratings to the entire firm.
A junior member of the team sent details of the upcoming trainee seat moves to the firm. But the hapless HR staffer also managed to attach to the email the "HR trainee tracker" - which contains details of how individual trainees performed in all their seats. Ooops.
A recall request was quickly sent out, thereby alerting recipients that there was something juicy to be read. In any event, an insider tells RollOnFriday that the email "was open on far too many computers by this point for this to make a difference" and the follow-up email detailing the manger's sincerest apologies was "far too little too late".
Which could be the case, given that RollOnFriday's data protection expert reckons the blunder could be sufficiently serious to attract enforcement by the Information Commissioner.
A spokesman for the firm said that "a firmwide communication regarding seat moves unfortunately also contained by mistake private information relating to individual trainees. The error was quickly spotted and steps were taken immediately to prevent any further publication of the material. We are reviewing our processes and have apologised to our trainees".
Tip Off ROF
A junior member of the team sent details of the upcoming trainee seat moves to the firm. But the hapless HR staffer also managed to attach to the email the "HR trainee tracker" - which contains details of how individual trainees performed in all their seats. Ooops.
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Advice to Addleshaw Goddard's HR department |
A recall request was quickly sent out, thereby alerting recipients that there was something juicy to be read. In any event, an insider tells RollOnFriday that the email "was open on far too many computers by this point for this to make a difference" and the follow-up email detailing the manger's sincerest apologies was "far too little too late".
Which could be the case, given that RollOnFriday's data protection expert reckons the blunder could be sufficiently serious to attract enforcement by the Information Commissioner.
A spokesman for the firm said that "a firmwide communication regarding seat moves unfortunately also contained by mistake private information relating to individual trainees. The error was quickly spotted and steps were taken immediately to prevent any further publication of the material. We are reviewing our processes and have apologised to our trainees".
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It's such an IT breach and cock up that when it comes to retention decisions I'd imagine any 50/50 decisions will go in favour of retaining trainees who were included on this spreadsheet to avoid further bad publicity arising from this at that time.
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Why? I can see some intuitive appeal in being seen to be "transparent" but (without meaning to sound confrontational) I don't see how it makes business sense. In any firm there are natural variations in salary which may not necessarily be performance-based - for instance, if one Associate is offered a job elsewhere and is offered a salary bump to keep him or her on, or is simply better at negotiating yearly pay rises. I would have thought publishing all details would provide a breeding ground for resentment and, in the case of underperforming fee earners (who may be billing less due to market forces or indolent partners not drumming up the work), shame.
How's it working out for you? And how do your staff feel?
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