Twice a week we publish the problems that will feature in a forthcoming Dear Jeremy advice column in the Saturday Guardian so that readers can offer their own advice and suggestions. We then print the best of your comments alongside Jeremy's own insights. Here is the latest dilemma – what are your thoughts?
I work for a national charity with about 4,000 employees across a range of UK sites. The organisation has recently told all staff they must complete a one-page bullet-point style "personal profile" with headings such as, "What's important to me"and, "How best to support me" which will be available on the intranet to all its employees.
Reasons given for this include enabling decision makers to match staff to appropriate tasks and "getting staff to know how to support each other".
Team leaders and site managers know staff very well at my site, and I can reasonably surmise this is true at other sites, so the rationale seems specious. Many of my colleagues see this as an attempt to present the organisation as a "big happy family" to staff, which belies managers' dismissal of frontline concerns over staffing and other issues.
Some have expressed concern that it makes our personal information available to people across our organisation whom we've never met. This seems to belie our excellent training on the importance of reflecting customer confidentiality.
A manager has said it's mandatory to complete this e-document, but if I feel uncomfortable doing so, can they enforce this?
Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy's and readers' help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally.
