The Dutch Privacy Act is in place to protect personal information on a legal basis.
How effective is this law in work situation? Or is it limiting involvement between colleagues especially in cases of illness? Is it necessary to change the law or to be more creative with the law?
Examples
Many people know the examples form the workplace, where you want to send a card or flowers to a colleague who is sick. A wall of protection limits HR departments to give you the necessary information. And they are right, they are not allowed to give this information. Especially for expats, who do not always have private contact with colleagues, this limits opportunities to show your concern about a colleague.
Some HR departments are proactive and creative, and they collect cards, or help to send flowers, but in many cases that is it. And even more so for outsiders, even if they have a longstanding contact with an employee.
The Effect is that the colleague who is on sick leave is puzzled about the fact that people with whom they have worked for long time or have worked with very intense in the past period, do not contact them at all. They wonder sometimes if they should stay working in such an environment where people don’t care.
Gatekeeper Law
The Dutch Gatekeeper Law regulates obligated moments where the employer needs to be in contact with a person on sick leave. That is not always done correctly and if that is the case it becomes very silent around a person on sick leave.
And then we are not even addressing cases of people leaving the company, who’s departure you missed for example due to a holiday and you cannot send a nice farewell message.
Creative solutions
There are companies that search for creative solutions, for example collecting postcards and sending them to the person or sometimes colleagues do have private info and share it with one another even do it is illegal formally. Many companies use the Gatekeepers Law in a good manner and show sincere involvement and not merely using it to check the person. That last aspect can have a contraindication as people sometimes state: ‘They only phone me to know when I can come back to work’, this is something we unfortunately hear now and again.
Personal involvement and commitment to the wellbeing of the staff sometimes has a contractionary effect versus the Dutch Privacy Act in day-to-day routine. It is wise to address this subject both for HR and for Works Councils as it can have a negative effect on team spirit, department cohesion and company culture, and also on the employee on sick leave. Having a conversation on this subject is time well spend with current shortage of staff.