Employer’s internal regulations may be kept in electronic form | PRO HR October 2022
2022.10.14
This concerns in particular the so-called internal acts issued unilaterally by the employer, i.e. various types of regulations, policies or procedures.
Employee documents issued unilaterally by the employer and regulating collective labour law can be signed by the employer either at once electronically or by hand and then uploaded to a dedicated IT tool.
Although, as a general rule, there is no legal requirement for intra-company acts to bear the employer's signature (electronic or handwritten), this is a good practice.
Naturally, collective bargaining agreements are an exception because of the procedure for their conclusion and amendment. The same applies to any other documents that require the signatures of the social side (trade unions or employee representatives). In such a case the employer's handwritten signature will work better.
Also, the employee's statement on familiarization with the contents of such internal documents, as a rule, do not need to have written form.
Only some such statements should be made in writing. This applies, for example, to (i) the monitoring information that the employer provides to the employee in writing, or (ii) the employee's confirmation in writing of his or her familiarization with the regulations and occupational health and safety rules.
However, there is no sanction of invalidity of these statements if the written form is not observed. This means that the statement may be made in any other way from which it will be clear what the content of the statement is and who made it.
The employer should verify the tool in which the employer's documents are to be stored for certain functionalities, ensure the security of the data stored in it, and train employees on how to maintain basic cyber hygiene.
If the personnel files are maintained in paper form, electronic documents that are part of the personnel files should be printed out, certified as an electronic document and deposited in the employee's file.
Find more in the PRO HR October 2022.