Is It Normal for HR to Share Email Passwords with Their Bosses in Smaller Companies?

Password Sharing Practices in HR

Can an HR professional share his/her desktop/office email password with his/her reporting boss? I have noticed the practice of sharing passwords with reporting bosses in small or medium-sized organizations, but I am unsure about big organizations. Is this a standard practice in the HR field?

Please advise on this.

Regards,
Nimisha Jha
[Email Removed For Privacy Reasons]

Password Sharing in HR: Risks and Considerations

I understand the criticality of an HR professional not sharing any password. HR always has the most valuable information/data stored, and it is always against protocol to share the same with "anyone." You mentioned that it's your immediate boss; you can share, but at the same time, there will be some adverse effects. It could expose your personal accounts to your boss.

Have you ever tried to check why your boss is insisting on the password? Perhaps, in my opinion, there might be a lack of sharing business information or communication.

Strive to check this to proceed accordingly.

Regards

It depends on the company culture and practice. It's permissible in the case of desktop/office email passwords, which, in any case, do not belong to the particular employee. Once an employee resigns, these passwords/accounts are blocked and made inaccessible by the company IT department.

Personal Email and Networking Sites

However, it's an entirely different matter in the case of personal email IDs, professional networking sites such as CiteHR, LinkedIn, etc., or social networking sites. Exerting influence on an employee to give these passwords to one's superior is an invasion of privacy, encroachment upon one's personal life, and an infringement of one's rights.

I hope the above clarifies the issue for you.

Warm regards.