Keeping the topic of privacy and information security alive is difficult in healthcare. You ran a campaign. Everyone was up for something like that. But then we go back to business as usual and awareness fades into the background. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to prevent that.
When you create an awareness program, you do it based on research into what is needed specifically in your organization. What risks, what message, what target groups, what activities, you think about everything. Then you have to plan activities after the campaign. And many organizations find it difficult to follow through.
What is also difficult is reaching all the people, in a way that suits all those people. There are many different people working in your organization with different backgrounds and learning styles. Therefore, it is important to include different types of activities in your program. What may not appeal to one person may be a great success with another colleague or other target group. With lots of variety, you will achieve results.
In this article, I will help you get ideas for activities in the anchoring phase. Anchoring is the sixth phase from the Privacylab model, after which the cycle starts again.
Close to all the people in the workplace, you know best what is going on and can provide the most applicable information. A privacy officer, data protection officer (FG) or communications consultant, whoever is responsible for awareness, can never be everywhere and therefore cannot know what is going on. A great link is ambassadors. Sometimes these people are called task holders, attention officers, role holders or something else. Team leaders are also sometimes assigned this task. In this article, I will continue to use the generic term: ambassadors. They are appointed, or better yet, choose that role, to keep the focus on privacy and information security alive within the team. With a network of ambassadors, you penetrate all corners of the organization. In doing so, ambassadors have an exemplary role and provide information to their colleagues. But it is two-way traffic: they also inform the privacy officer or FG about what people encounter during their work. That is so valuable!
Enthusiasm is the most important thing for ambassadors. But they must be facilitated from within the organization. The tasks an employee must perform as an attention officer (or whatever you call it) are in addition to the tasks of his actual position: accountability for the client. Attention officers are there for medication, finance/cash, FAFS, ICT, volunteers/network, rosters, quality, facilities, you name it. So to keep it manageable, attention officers/ambassadors need help.
Training at the start helps increase knowledge and motivation. And then they are tasked with addressing the issue in their team. But how? If you don't help ambassadors with this properly, their enthusiasm also sinks in and soon everyone goes on with their daily work. Pamper these people, for example with periodic meetings to inspire them. This way they maintain their knowledge and can discuss with each other what they encounter. An attention in due course is also nice.
An additional way to support ambassadors is to make sure they have materials to discuss the topic in their team. If posters are a part of your campaign, it is not so difficult to take them as a reason for a short discussion in the work meeting each time. You support the ambassador with background knowledge and any pre-prepared questions for the team, and that way the topic is back in the spotlight for a while.
"Gamification" is something you hear more and more often. The use of a game form, but educational. This can be as big or small as you want, from a quartet game to a live goose board or an online game. In any case, what works is to regularly discuss a privacy topic in a short period of time in work meetings.
An example of another form of work is discussion cards. These can be about what information is "lying around" in the workplace or about other issues employees encounter in their daily work. You can discuss different cards in groups or end each work meeting by discussing one card briefly with all of you.
Martine van de Merwe is author of the book'Care for Privacy'
On March 12, 19 and 26, 2020, the three-day course Privacy in the Social Domain will take place.
Since the decentralizations in 2015, there has been intensive cooperation between social workers and officials, as well as between agencies and municipalities. This involves the exchange of sensitive, often special personal data. How can effective cooperation be organized in which the civil servant executes the law, the social worker maintains his integrity and the privacy of clients remains protected?
The course is led by privacy lawyer Corrie Ebbers and is intended for employees and lawyers of municipalities and healthcare providers who are designated as quality officers, privacy experts or data protection officers in the social domain.
