Who we are
Best Work Culture operates Best Work Culture, a website that publishes HR practice guides for Indian workplaces and runs a public recognition programme for HR professionals. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and what you can ask us to do with it.
For anything in this policy, write to hello@bestworkculture.com.
What we collect
We only collect what a specific feature needs. Reading the site requires nothing from you.
| When | What we collect |
|---|---|
| You subscribe to the newsletter | Your email address, the date and time, and the IP address the request came from |
| You nominate someone, or complete a profile | Name, work email, phone number, designation, company, city, years of experience, LinkedIn URL, biography, achievements, a photograph if you upload one, your consent record, and a one-way hash of the IP address |
| You use the HR Health Check | The answers you select during that session, so the tool can produce your result |
| Any visit | Standard server log data and the analytics described below |
We do not ask for financial information, government identity numbers, or any of the categories of data that need special handling. Please do not send them to us.
When you nominate someone else
The recognition programme works by one person submitting another person's details. If you nominate a colleague, you are giving us their personal data, and you should only do that if you are comfortable that they would not object.
Nothing goes public automatically. We contact the nominee before anything is published, and a nomination is only listed once they have confirmed it and we have completed our checks. If you have been nominated and you would rather not be, tell us at hello@bestworkculture.com and we will remove the record. You do not have to give a reason.
Why we use it, and on what basis
We process personal data on the basis of the consent you give when you submit a form, and to the extent necessary for the purpose you submitted it for.
- To send the newsletter you subscribed to, and nothing else
- To verify a nomination, contact the nominee, and publish a listing or badge once verified
- To produce and send the result of an assessment you completed
- To respond when you write to us
- To keep the site secure, prevent abuse of the forms, and diagnose faults
- To understand which pages are read, in aggregate, so we can decide what to write next
We do not sell personal data. We do not use it to build advertising profiles, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.
What becomes public
A verified recognition listing or badge page is public by design, because it exists to be shared. A published badge shows the name, designation, company and city, and the badge page address can be opened by anyone who has the link.
Your email address, phone number and anything else you sent us during the process are never published. If you want a published badge taken down, write to us and we will remove it.
Analytics and third parties
A small number of external services are involved in running the site. Each one receives only what it needs to do its job.
| Service | What it does, and what it sees |
|---|---|
| Google Analytics | Measures page views and traffic sources in aggregate. Sets cookies and receives your IP address. |
| Ahrefs Web Analytics | Measures page views. It is a cookie-free analytics product. |
| Google reCAPTCHA | Protects the forms from automated abuse. Google receives request data and device signals from pages carrying a protected form. |
| Google Fonts | Serves the typefaces used across the site, and receives your IP address when a font is fetched. |
| Email delivery | Sends the newsletter and transactional messages. The provider processes your email address on our instruction. |
| Only when you choose to share a badge. Sharing opens LinkedIn, and what happens there is governed by their terms. | |
| Hosting | Stores the site and its data, and keeps standard server logs. |
These providers act on our instructions for the site's own purposes. Some of them operate infrastructure outside India, which means data may be processed outside the country.
Cookies and local storage
- A session cookie on pages with forms and on badge pages, which keeps you connected to your own submission during a visit. It is required for those pages to work
- Your light or dark theme choice, stored in your browser's local storage rather than in a cookie. It never leaves your device and we cannot read it
- Cookies set by Google Analytics and by reCAPTCHA on the pages where those run
You can clear or block cookies in your browser. Blocking them will stop the forms working, because the protection on them depends on it.
How long we keep it
- Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe, and we act on that within a few days
- Nominations that were never verified: removed once it is clear they are not proceeding
- Published listings and badges: for as long as they are published, and removed when you ask
- Assessment answers: for the session that produced the result
- Correspondence: for as long as needed to deal with what you wrote about
- Server and analytics records: on the retention schedule of the service concerned
Security
Submissions and subscriber records are held in storage that the web server refuses to serve over HTTP, so they cannot be reached by guessing a URL. Forms carry automated-abuse protection, and IP addresses attached to nominations are stored as a one-way hash rather than in full.
No system is perfectly secure, and we will not pretend otherwise. If something goes wrong that affects your data, we will tell you and the relevant authority as required.
Your rights
Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can ask us to:
- Tell you what personal data of yours we hold and what we have done with it
- Correct anything inaccurate, or complete anything incomplete
- Erase it, where we no longer need it for the purpose you gave it for
- Withdraw consent you previously gave, which is as easy to do as it was to give
- Nominate someone to exercise these rights for you if you are unable to
Write to hello@bestworkculture.com and we will respond. If you are not satisfied with how we have handled it, you can raise a grievance with us first, and then with the Data Protection Board of India.
Children
The site is intended for working professionals and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has sent us personal data, tell us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes we update the date at the top of the page. Where a change materially affects what we do with data you have already given us, we will tell you rather than rely on you noticing.