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Human Resources Digitisation trends in Poland

There’s a technological transformation underway in Poland and for some in-house HR departments, it’s a two-fold challenge to keep pace and keep ahead of changing requirements.

Digitisation is in sharp focus in Poland, with a strong Government commitment to digitising as many aspects of business reporting, social care, healthcare and government interaction as possible. The Ministry of Digital Affairs was established in 2015, linking with the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy – amongst other Government departments – to exploit the benefits of new technology across the country.

Human Resources practices are an integral part of the digital evolution, and for some in-house departments, it’s a challenge to not only maintain compliance, but to keep ahead of changing trends. The fast-paced development of digital HR presents its own challenges, so it’s essential to be aware of recent changes and their likely impact.

A new act amending certain acts in connection with the shortening of the minimum personnel files’ storage period and their digitalisation comes into force on 1 January 2019, allowing employers to keep and store employment documentation and employee personnel files in electronic form. The aim is to improve speed and efficiency by cutting the time needed to browse and work on files, and also reduce storage costs.

Less archiving

Part of the Polish Government’s ‘100 changes for businesses’ legislative package, the new act also cuts the required storage time for employment documentation from 50 years after employment termination to ten. Each employee will have a personal Polish Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) account and employers will need to submit monthly individual reports on due contributions and benefits paid out. Employees will have live access to the data in their accounts through the online Electronic Services Platform (PUE ZUS) with an option to review the data or, in the case of lost documents, request information to be delivered online or in hard copy, making the fulfilment of labour law obligations easier. The new legislation also establishes cashless payment of wages and salaries as the basic form of pay. Within 21 days of the new act’s effective date, i.e. by January 22, 2019, employers will be entitled to request bank account information from their employees.

HR departments should be acting now to get ready for the new regulations and making sure that any digitisation of employee records complies with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines.

Efficiency

One of the other changing practices in Poland is the digitisation of sick notes. Electronic sick leave certificates were due to replace paper ones when a new law came into effect on 1 July this year, but for the moment, this change has been postponed to 1 December 2018, to allow more time for doctors to incorporate the new approach in their practice.

Sick leave certificates in electronic form were first introduced two years ago, but with a 10% minority of physicians adopting them, it was decided that new legislation was needed to eliminate paper versions altogether, to help fight dishonest practices. Since 2008, the scale of sick leave in Poland has been rising. The change to electronic sick notes, which are faster to process than paper ones, will help the authorities to check whether people calling in sick are really ill and cut unwarranted paid sick leave.

As employers aim to maximise productivity and minimise costs by tackling absenteeism, Time and Attendance (T&A) software and systems are increasingly popular. Accurate recording of an employee’s time and attendance is essential to calculate wages, overtime, benefits, and bonuses. Computerised T&A solutions have replaced cumbersome paper-based systems, which were prone to inaccuracy, with the ability to record accurate employee clocking data in real time, providing immediately-accessible information for the payroll department to access.

Dynamic

Managing multiple office sites and a global workforce requires a dynamic system, one capable of evolving as an organisation expands. Most companies struggle to access data for effective payroll delivery on a local level and find it nearly impossible to implement a single portal across multiple countries.

An ideal solution is TMF Horizon, which links traditional payroll to an online portal that is specifically designed to meet the challenges of modern payroll delivery, (often referred to as ‘middleware’) and complements TMF Group’s payroll service. TMF Horizon offers digital payslips in local format, access to data, workflow task management with daily reminders to help with accurate payroll delivery, and global reporting with worldwide payroll visibility and performance metrics via dashboard analytics.

Providing global payroll intelligence at your fingertips, data is transferred securely within the system, so confidential information regarding employees does not have to be emailed. A communication tool between employees and your HR and payroll team not only improves efficiency, but also boosts internal communications.

Talk to us

TMF Poland has specialists based in Warsaw and Katowice covering accounting, tax compliance, corporate secretarial, HR and payroll. We service clients both locally and internationally.

To find out more about how TMF Poland and our digital solutions and technology can help fulfil your HR requirements, please contact us today.

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