Issue, Track & Maintain Policy Documents

The HR Policy add-on

Organisations usually ask Employees to confirm that they have read and understood a number of employment policies. These documents communicate important information about the day-to-day operation of the organisation and are often in addition to the individual’s employment contract.

This has normally been achieved by using printed documents, and the appropriately signed copies are then paper filed in the employee’s personnel file. Typically, the employee is given the printed documents to take away, read & return. However, HR may then need to chase this up to ensure that the employee has done so.

There is a general move away from storing large amounts of paper-based records. Requesting employees to sign printed copies of HR documents/policies and then having to file these with their other stored paper records is not only wasteful, but it also makes it difficult to quickly determine who has read which policy (to find out if a policy has been signed by a particular employee you need to go to the filing cabinet and check).

Periodically, as legislation and procedures change there are likely to be new policies introduced and amended versions of existing policies will often be required too. These new documents will need to read and acknowledged by each employee. Tracking these changes using printed documents can be very time-consuming and prone to error.

On changing jobs employees may need to read a different set of HR policies applicable to their new job role making it to be able to associate different HR policies with different roles.

The People Inc. HR Policy feature can be used to issue, track sign off & maintain policy documents.

The add-on allows users to manage the sign-off of a range of different types of document; its use is not restricted to just HR documents. In this way, an organisation can make other documents available using this feature.

Features

Available for the People Inc. employee self-service module – The HR Policy add-on allows HR to manage a paperless policy sign-off electronically.

The add-on can be accessed via PC, tablet or mobile phone and allows HR to give individual employees access to electronic copies of the latest HR policy documents applicable for their job.

The employee can then indicate that they have read and understood each policy document. The system records the-details of the account that was used to access the system and the date and time they did this.

Policy documents can be grouped together and assigned to employees based on jobs or roles. For example, there may be a group of documents that apply to all jobs; these would usually begrouped together as ‘core’ or ‘standard’ documents. Specialist documents can be assigned separately (to specialist roles).

HR can issue new policy documents as required and can easily assign these to groups of jobs. The system notifies employees via e-mail that they have new documents to review.

When an existing policy document needs to be updated, users can replace the existing document with a new version and the system will notify the relevant employees automatically.

Further, as an aid to HR, the system automatically generates notification e-mails when a new document needs to be read, and reminder e-mails when this has not been done.

Reports summarising policy sign-off are available to allow users to monitor the sign-off on HR policies. This will highlight areas where sign-off has not been completed (or is slow). This may be especially important where compliance depends on employee sign-off.

Features at a glance…

  • Publish copies of HR policies to employees
  • Employees indicate that they have read and understood
  • Group policy documents together and assign them based on jobs/roles
  • Add additional policy documents as required
  • Replace existing documents with a new version when required
  • System automatically generates e-mail notifications and reminders
  • Users can access a full history of sign-off records for each employee
  • Reports allow users to monitor the sign-off on HR policies

Benefits at a glance…

  • Saves time (for both employees and HR)
  • Access policy documents available 24/7
  • Means less printing, paper and storage
  • Instant clarity (who has signed-off what?)
  • Ensures accountability
  • Assists with compliance

It significantly reduces paper and printing costs (and in addition, means that the need for physical storage space is reduced)

It provides accountability. It removes any doubt associated with policy sign-off. All key data is retained in the system – the users account that logged in, the date and time policy sign-off was requested, the sign-off status of each policy (for each employee) and the date and time they were signed-off.

It can help with compliance. Where companies/organisations are required to provide proof that employees have read and understood information relating to products, processes, and client requirements, sign-off can help to demonstrate compliance with legislation and commercial agreements binding the company/organisation.

HR Policies

Examples of employment policies include:

  • Health & Safety policy Hours of Work
  • Grievance Procedure
  • Intellectual Property Policy
  • Lobbying and Political Activities
  • Overtime Policy
  • Paid Absences From Work
  • Equal Opportunity policy
  • Staff Holidays Policy

For more information about how The Employee Self Service module can help your company see here or contact us.