Anonymising Workforce Extracts Before an Outside Review

Outside reviews work best with lean extracts. Remove names, national IDs, exact birth dates, and free-text manager comments. Keep role family, hire month, location code, employment status, and departure month when relevant.

Replace fine-grained ages with age bands if age matters to the question. For small sites, consider rolling adjacent months together so no cell points at one person.

Agree the question list before the file leaves your network. Extra columns invited “just in case” often create risk without improving the charts.

Record what was shared and when. That log helps both privacy officers and future engagements that reuse the same structure.