Employee's Privacy regarding Garnishments
dsys1749
2 Posts
Are employee garnishments covered under privacy laws? Can the HR/Payroll department share information regarding an employee's garnishment with that employee's supervisor/manager?
Comments
What is the HR Director's request?
What is your role with the company?
Otherwise, it is nobody's business.
The fact that a garnishment is in process for an employee is absolutely no business of his/her supervisor. No more than the supervisor should know how much goes into the employee's 401(K) each week or what deductions he/she selected. Nor should a supervisor know if an employee had crabs detected during the company physical. I would suspect, although I do not know, that neither would affect performance if remedies are in place.
I do agree we need to be very cautious w/whom we share the information though.
However, I must defend the credit check PRIOR to hiring. To make allowances for "bad things happen to good people" the applicant's explanation for "credit problems" should taken into consideration. When credit problems arise from a long term life style, we have inevitably had problems (cash register shortages, product stolen or sold, padding overtime hours etc. etc. etc.)
Furthermore, anyone contributing to this forum can disagree with one another. But, in the future, would prefer that you tell me you disagree rather than I have dumb ideas. It may seem so to you, but for my company and my experience be a PROVEN FACT.
>laws? Can the HR/Payroll department share
>information regarding an employee's garnishment
>with that employee's supervisor/manager?
I sort of agree with both Don and Marc. What is on a persons check (or not in the check) is not the business of the supv. (except knowing the persons pay rate.) However, there are reasons to be concerend about people who handle cash or money processing.
What we did with my former employer was do a credit check for anyone who "handled money". This way if a garnishment came up on this report, it could then be considered for employment purposes (if this is your policy). However, once employed why would supv. have business to know?
E Wart
If you have given the supervisor a heads up that the control features are particularly important right now and why, they will know that they must not overlook these basic procedures.
In our shop, the supervisor plays an important role in hiring his/her staff and would be privy to all of the information we have on a candidate, which would include credit reports (if we ran them). Why would this need decline just because you have hired them. Just because a candidate becomes an employee does not mean you lose your reasons to be diligent in protecting the company.
That is why I think the supervisor(s) associated with protecting a company's cash handling functions need to know. In fact, once you have hired a person, the real exposure to a company begins.
Actually, my point was that integrity knows no net worth. I'm pretty sure that Martha and the fat cats in those corporations have stellar credit reports. You're either honest or you're not. I don't mean to hijack the thread here, but infinite greed cost alot of people big chunk of their pension plans.
That said; discretion, balanced by the need to protect the company, must surely be one of the guiding principles of the HR profession. I would assure all that we do not bandy this type of information about.
Most of the garnishments we handle are just routine. A couple of our EEs live their lives in a manner that lends itself to these legal actions. In those cases, our Exec Dir does not even know they are going on. A person in payroll handles the deduction and gets the payment to the garnishing agency. Even the AP clerk does not know. Even the check signers only know the name of the garnishing agent, not the name of the EE. So we keep this stuff close to the vest as a normal practice.
Anyway, I just wanted to add that sometimes a garnishment is also a condition that if over a certain amount is made that amount is sent to a governmental department.
When this kind of "attachment or garnishment" occurs I sit with employee and discuss because they need to understand that when they work overtime the amount earned is going to be sent to the government and will not be in their check.
The sticky part comes into play when the supervisor is going to schedule overtime to the employee.
Sometimes everyone needs to sit down and discuss the situation (always with the employee upon his/her agreement with same).
So I guess it depends on your definition of "garnishment".
1. Is it a single garnishment, or have there been multiple garnishments; and
2. Do you have a policy on EE Conduct regarding discharging the EE's financial obligations promptly so that creditors will not ask for assistance in collecting amounts owed them?
According to the 2004 So.ER's Guide,a Handbook of Federal Employment Laws and Regulations published by Summers Press, "under federal law, an EE may not be discharged or disciplined for a single garnishment, but may be for multiple garnishments".
So, in summary, if there have been multiple garnishments, and you have such a policy and want to "discipline" the EE for same, their Supervisor or the Administrator would have a right to know.
Let HR refer the employee to the EAP if you have one, otherwise you can use other sources, as in Louisville, KY, we have an excellent United Way system that had ready resources for our employees on many issues, including financial planning.
If the garnishment is possibly connected to debt associated with medical treatment of the employee or family member, my opinion is it could well be a HIPAA issue.
To my knowledge, in Kentucky, you can not terminate an employee for garnishments, but can establish an administrative charge for the trouble. This is stipulated on the garnishment papers you receive. As you see from other posts, it is different in many states.