Explain why Security and Confidentiality are Important in a Business Environment with Sainsbury’s (GC01167)
Unit 1 LO3
To protect security and privacy in Sainsbury’s business environment. Ways to keep confidentiality in the workplace carry out confidentiality training. When employees divulge information they’re not supposed to, it isn’t always purposeful or malicious. Sainsbury’s needs to have a security policy in place to keep employees, equipment, and goods secure and safe. Having the right security measures can help prevent and deter burglars or people who intend to enter the property without permission.
3.1: Explain why security and confidentiality are important in a business environment?
In business, some things need to be kept private. Whether it’s top-secret information about a new product, employee’s personal details for HR, or anonymous feedback to management, Sainsbury’s need to manage it in a way to ensure it doesn’t get into the wrong hands. Sainsbury’s needs to have a security policy in place to keep employees, equipment, and goods secure and safe (Cordon, 2018).
Importance of Security at Workplace
Security is extremely important in the workplace of Sainsbury’s. By implementing best practice security procedures, processes, and products, Sainsbury’s will help to ensure the security and safety of their premises, assets, and staff. Criminals will usually target the workplace that has the least amount of security products and processes in place. So by implementing security best practices, they are greatly minimizing the risk of attack by a criminal on their business. Loss of company assets or staff absence from work due to criminality puts a great financial burden on a company and in extreme cases can put them out of business. So it is vital to protect their business with good quality security systems and processes (Rayan, 2014).
Adopting various security measures at the workplace helps to ensure that everyone is safe from violence and harm. Also, modern security systems can protect companies from unwanted happenings like thefts and burglaries. Incidents of break-ins with the motive of theft often lead to someone being seriously injured. Thus, putting the right security in place helps in eliminating such risks at the workplace. Sainsbury’s must ensure and enforce security and confidentiality of its information assets among its employees, clients, and other business partnerships. These assets may refer to information processed in the back office: business process outsourcing, recruitment, compensation, employee management, and other processes, or information delivered in the front office: client transactions, partnership deals, and contract information. When Sainsbury’s protect information on its employees, management, and business, a varied number of unfavorable consequences can occur (Rayan, 2014).
Importance of Confidentiality at Workplace
Confidentiality is critical in situations such as workplace investigations or performance and disciplinary action issues (Sainsbury’s, 2018). In Sainsbury’s maintaining confidentiality can be particularly challenging when certain information has to be divulged to others so that all involved parties can be heard and all pertinent information can be evaluated. A human resource professional must be able to strike a balance between preserving employee confidentiality and completing a thorough investigation that is fair to all parties (Cordon, 2018). Maintaining confidentiality is of paramount importance for varied reasons. The client or the customer can file legal suits against the organization if they feel that some secret information regarding them has been revealed by the organization or its employees.
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This can have negative repercussions on the business’s reputation as well. So it becomes very important for the employees as well as the organization to protect the information in the workplace. It also makes Sainsbury’s stay ahead of its competitors as its strategy is unknown to them. It maintains a degree of professionalism and increases trust and respect for the company from clients. Sainsbury’s must maintain confidentiality to protect against competitors gaining trade secrets and to protect the interests of customers, suppliers, business partners, and employees. Employees often have access to customers’ personal data, which must also be kept confidential (Cordon, 2018).
3.2: Explain the possible consequences of failing to maintain security and confidentiality in line with requirements.
According to Garret (2017), in order to protect intellectual property and trade secrets, Sainsbury’s usually using confidentiality agreements. Employees are required to review and sign these documents if they are to continue working for their employers. Breaching these contracts could bring about serious legal woes as well as the loss of employment. The security measures are no longer basic precautions. Due to the sophistication and abundance of ways to attack Sainsbury’s, security must always encompass the overall well-being of the enterprise and its consumer.
Consequences of failing to maintain confidentiality
According to Garret (2017), a company whose confidentiality agreement has been breached will confront the guilty employee. If the breach cannot be explained to the employer’s satisfaction, the employee will likely be fired. It is not uncommon for companies to share information about costly potential employees with their peers, clients, and business partners. Someone who has been accused of breaching a confidentiality agreement may find it difficult to secure employment in the same industry. Companies who feel the confidentiality breach has cost them financially (directly or indirectly) will typically file a lawsuit against the guilty employee. The first legal step on Sainsbury’s part will be to file an injunction to prevent any further sensitive information from being shared.
Therefore, according to Felton (2017), from a legal perspective, all of these steps are recognized as necessary in order to protect the confidentiality of Sainsbury’s information. Before a business can protect its confidential information, or expect someone else not to disclose it, the business must be able to specifically identify what the information is that it considers being confidential. Obviously, not all information can be classified as confidential. Once a business has identified what information it believes to be confidential, it is essential that its employees understand what information the business considers to be confidential. An Employee Handbook sets forth, among other things, an employer’s expectation of its employees.
Consequences of failing to maintain security
According to Warner (2016), the impact of a breach on Sainsbury’s is potentially staggering, and often unknown until the results come to fruition. It’s unfortunate that the highest occurrences of compromise come from inside Sainsbury’s due to malicious or negligent acts; it takes time for Sainsbury’s to recover. The cost of the lost business alone holds great consequences for Sainsbury’s. There’s a growing awareness of the ease of theft of identity and personal information. When a breach occurs, not only does the business’ reputation become damaged, the consumer’s trust is also compromised. There is nothing concrete to prevent a violation entirely, but the likelihood is reduced when the entire Sainsbury’s is educated and aware of precautions to take.
Therefore, risk treatment and assessment copes with the fundamentals of security risk analysis. Maintain an organized infrastructure to control how the company implements information security. Assets management includes proper protection of organizational assets and making sure that information is rightly secured. Personnel security management is ensuring suitable jobs for employees, contractors, third parties and also preventing them from misusing information processing facilities. Sainsbury’s should use perimeters and barriers to protect secure areas. Entry controls should give access to authorized people only to important areas. Secure areas should be designed to be able to withstand a natural disaster. Supervise the use of delivery and loading areas and make sure it is carefully carried out in holding areas. Safeguard the equipment and protect it from hazards. Power supplies and cable should be secured. Ensure safe access to information and property.