One of the unexpected effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is the acceleration of the digitalization process in HR departments. Employers have been forced by objective circumstances to find a way to carry out all of their personnel-related processes remotely, optimally on a paperless basis. Therefore, there is no surprise that the solutions that have thus far spurned reluctance as being overcomplicated are gaining popularity.

One prime example of this is related to digitalized personnel files, widely referred to as e-files. They give HR employees access to employee documents not just in the office where they have cabinets containing employee files but also remotely from their homes. 

Paperless HR is the future. It forms a perfect fit with the strategy pursued by modern companies implementing ecological solutions. In the future we will ask ourselves why this revolution did not begin until the Covid pandemic struck.

Some history

Regulations treating the legal effectiveness of documents signed with a qualified electronic signature as equivalent to documents bearing wet ink signatures were enacted in Polish law nearly 20 years ago. 

Initially, the Electronic Signature Act of 18 September 2001 governed the framework for qualified signatures. Prior to Poland’s accession to the European Union, it implemented into the Polish legal system directive 1999/93/EC of 13 December 1999 on the community framework for electronic signatures.

This act also enacted Article 78 § 2 in the Civil Code, which has been in force since 16 August 2002 and according to which a statement of will submitted in electronic form bearing an electronic signature verified by means of a valid qualified certificate is equivalent to written form. 

At the beginning it sparked doubts as to whether these regulations could also be applicable to labour law. The Supreme Court affirmed this in its judgment of 24 August 2009 (I PK 58/09) in which it explicitly held that this regulation is also applicable to statements of will related to employment, including terminations of employment contracts. 

This judgment, albeit important did not however prove to be a landmark in business practice. The regulations regarding qualified electronic signatures were still rarely used in the day-to-day work of HR departments. The first obstacle was the apparent complexity of these signatures, obtaining them was fairly cumbersome, costly and accessible to few. It was easier to print a document, sign it and personally hand it to an employee. The second obstacle was linked to habits. Many HR managers and directors could not imagine that it would be possible to hire or dismiss someone by e-mail.

The European Commission noted that the regulations in place at that time were insufficient to facilitate the further development of electronic transactions and undertook efforts to change that. In 2016 the directive mentioned above was replaced by Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC (referred to as the eIDAS Regulation). In contrast to directives, EU regulations do not have to be implemented into the local legal systems of member states. Nevertheless, to facilitate its application, Polish regulations were also modified. 

The Act of 5 September 2016 on Trust Services and Electronic Identification replaced the Electronic Signature Act. It also introduced amendments to the Civil Code. It contains a definition of a document, which is now considered to include any and all information carriers making it possible to read its contents. From that moment, e-mails and text messages, for instance, besides traditional hardcopy documents became documents. A new legal form for submitting statements of will also appeared, namely, the documented form. To use this form, it is sufficient to submit a declaration in the form of a document; the key, however, is to be able to identify the person from whom the declaration originates.

Therefore, it is sufficient, for instance, to send a declaration by e-mail or a text message provided that there are no doubts concerning the person using the e-mail or handset from which the text message is sent. The Civil Code still contains a regulation treating written documents containing wet ink signatures as equivalent to documents signed with a qualified electronic signature, though the number of the clause has changed (it is now Article 781 § 2 of the Civil Code).

The next step that brought us closer to HR digitalization, though it could seem that there is no connection to HR-related issues, was the implementation in October of 2018 of the obligation of preparing financial statements electronically and signing them with a qualified electronic signature, a trusted signature or a personal signature. Financial statements must be filed annually by companies registered in Poland (by partnerships and commercial companies alike). Consequently, the introduction of this requirement meant that most management board members of companies acquired such a signature. They started to familiarize themselves with this tool, which proved to be easy and handy to use. However, even though they use these types of signatures to file their financial statements, they are not all confident about using them in business, and even more so in HR-related issues.

Attachment to paper

Paper continued to reign in HR, even in entities that are innovative and poised to embrace electronic transactions. Until not so long ago, in most companies it was possible to enter into a contract, submit an application for holiday leave or file a notice of termination only in hardcopy form to document that intention credibly. 

Additionally, although the regulations treating documents executed in traditional written form as equivalent to documents in softcopy form signed with a qualified signature have been in force for a long time, up until early 2019 it was permissible to keep employees’ personnel files solely in hardcopy form. That meant in turn that fully digitalizing HR was not possible. For even if an employment contract or termination thereof are executed electronically and signed with a qualified electronic signature, they still had to be subsequently printed out and inserted into the pertinent portion of the employee’s hardcopy file.

E-file

The possibility of keeping employee documentation, including employees’ personnel files in softcopy form has been in existence for nearly 2 years. The Regulation issued by the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy of 10 December 2018 on employee documentation making that possible took force on 1 January 2019. Few employers have taken advantage of this option. Though HR departments had been waiting for that possibility, no one had expected that the technical requirements for electronic documentation would be so complicated and that the process of digitalization would be so time-consuming and costly. Nor were the vendors of these tools immediately ready to embrace such a revolution. 

For it turned out that it was not sufficient simply to store the documents in an employee’s file by placing them in a copier’s feeder and scanning them. Every document has to be scanned separately (in a separate resolution prescribed by the regulations) and saved in PDF format. What’s more, every scan has to be signed with the qualified electronic signature of the employer or of a person authorised by the employer. This is supposed to constitute confirmation that it is an accurate representation of the hardcopy document - a type of affirmation that the scan is compliant with the original.

Moreover, an e-file should be kept in an information and communication system that must satisfy strictly defined requirements laid down in the regulation (i.e., it must support searches of documents utilizing metadata, i.e., additional information that must be assigned to every document placed in an e-file). Saving scans of hardcopy documents in folders on a shared disk or in the cloud is therefore most certainly insufficient. An e-file is something more than that.

Digitalization of HR processes

When it comes to some HR-processes, their digitalization has been proceeding in a natural way for some time. Managing and evidencing working time may serve as an example. For years many companies have combined their records of working time with an office access system, or a system reading the time of logging onto a computer, while they no longer remember the days when lists of attendance or holiday leave applications were in hardcopy form. When the regulations changed, these organisations merely had to ascertain whether the solutions they employ satisfy the new legal requirements.

Managing a company’s social benefits fund is a similar process. Cafeteria platforms fully operated electronically have become more and more popular in recent years.

However, it is still the case that only a few companies can brag about having thoroughly digitalized their HR.

Covid pandemic and change of mindset

During the pandemic it has turned out that our habitual preferences for traditional hardcopy documents impede the hiring of employees, managing them when doing remote work, modifying contracts and ultimately running the dismissal process. The necessity of maintaining social distance has precluded face-to-face meetings to sign an employment contract, pay rise statement, annex concerning a promotion or deliver a notice of termination. 

After conducting a more thorough review of labour law regulations, however, it turned out that it is possible to remove paper successfully from all of these processes (and many others, too) and achieve targets with the same amount of efficacy. 

Employees of HR departments also started to perceive value in the option of having remote access to employee documentation, which is quite difficult, or simply impossible when documentation is kept in traditional hardcopy form. 

From the outset of the pandemic our clients have asked us more and more questions about how to hire, promote or dismiss an employee who works remotely and does not have a printer at home. They have been astonished at how straightforward this is in practice. This has inspired us to look for opportunities to eradicate paper completely and abolish all the myths. Paperless HR is a real option today. 

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More articles in the PRO HR Year Book 2020.