Personnel man­age­ment – tasks, functions, and goals

Personnel man­age­ment is one of the cor­ner­stones of a human resource de­part­ment. It comprises all ad­min­is­tra­tive and routine tasks in a human resources de­part­ment. Planning and de­vel­op­ment are other central re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Personnel man­age­ment is also referred to as personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion or trans­ac­tion­al personnel work. This kind of ad­min­is­tra­tion deals in­ten­sive­ly with the re­la­tion­ship between employees and the company. In the course of trans­ac­tion­al tasks, data is also trans­ferred to third parties. For example, payroll ac­count­ing is forwarded to the re­spon­si­ble au­thor­i­ties.

The key objective of personnel man­age­ment is main­tain­ing and being able to provide up-to-date, accurate personnel data. This ensures optimal internal com­mu­ni­ca­tion within the company. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, efficient ad­min­is­tra­tive work is a pre­req­ui­site for smooth internal co­op­er­a­tion. In general, it is the personnel ad­min­is­tra­tor’s task to organize and simplify all processes con­cern­ing a company’s employees.

By per­form­ing its tasks ef­fi­cient­ly and ac­cu­rate­ly, personnel man­age­ment can achieve its goal: to establish, maintain, or expand employee sat­is­fac­tion. A high level of employee sat­is­fac­tion and a func­tion­ing personnel man­age­ment system creative decisive ad­van­tages for a company. If employees are satisfied, they work more pro­duc­tive­ly and cre­ative­ly, they’re less fre­quent­ly sick, and they have a higher level of loyalty to their employer.

Personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion tasks can be divided into two cat­e­gories: tasks for op­er­a­tional or legal reasons, or tasks for human resource policy and planning strategic decisions. The latter includes man­age­ment key sta­tis­tics, per­for­mance com­par­isons, or eval­u­at­ing employee surveys. Tasks that arise for op­er­a­tional reasons or that are based on legal issues might be pro­cess­ing work time tracking systems, social security, wages, sta­tis­tics, employee hires or fires, or even employer ref­er­ences.

As a rule, companies use a human resources in­for­ma­tion system that supports the human resources de­part­ment carry out its tasks. In this system, each employee’s personal data is recorded from their personnel file and data is collected for payroll and time recording, personnel sta­tis­tics, travel expense ac­count­ing, as well as position plan ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Core personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion tasks:

• Recognize employee needs, gather and evaluate relevant in­for­ma­tion and trends

• Create and manage personnel files
• Record staff arrivals, de­par­tures, and changes
• Create em­ploy­ment contracts and other agree­ments like loans or subleases
• Process employee requests, i.e. for leave or further training
• Conduct all cor­re­spon­dence with au­thor­i­ties, offices, health insurance companies (when provided by the employer), ac­count­ing offices, insurance companies, and con­trac­tu­al partners
• Su­per­vis­ing the entry and exit of employees
• Manage employee absences
• Supervise wage and salary payments
• Record working times

Personnel man­age­ment fulfils its function by per­form­ing the following tasks:

• Providing in­for­ma­tion at short notice: They provide current in­for­ma­tion for in­di­vid­ual employees, specific groups, or the entire staff at short notice. The data can usually be taken from the personnel file. Personnel in­for­ma­tion systems are becoming in­creas­ing­ly important in this context.
• Handling processes: Employees are hired, trans­ferred, promoted, or leave the company. Personnel man­age­ment is re­spon­si­ble for the handling of these processes.
• Employee reg­is­tra­tion: In addition to reg­is­ter­ing the employee with the relevant au­thor­i­ties, it’s also the personnel man­age­ment’s task to register the employee’s wages with the tax office, social security office, and insurance company (if ap­plic­a­ble).
• Control: Fluc­tu­a­tions, absence times, overtime, vacation en­ti­tle­ment, and working hours are checked by personnel man­age­ment. Working time control is par­tic­u­lar­ly relevant for flextime arrange­ments.
• Personnel pro­tec­tion: Personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion ensures that the oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety of employees is being observed and that personal data is treated in ac­cor­dance with current data pro­tec­tion laws.

Personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion employees have to deal with highly sensitive and personal data like names, addresses, medical data, account data, cer­tifi­cates, and CVs on a daily basis. This data is subject to special pro­tec­tion by law. Human resource de­part­ments need to observe reg­u­la­tions of ap­plic­a­ble laws in all pro­ce­dures. An example of a sensitive law is in­ten­si­fied data pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tion brought in by the GDPR. The GDPR arrival means that companies have to keep an eye on legal con­for­mi­ty with internal processes. While this new law is a European Union (EU) directive, US companies that do business or employ people in the EU are required to comply with these laws thanks to the Privacy Shield. In addition to the GDPR, there are countless data pro­tec­tion laws in place in the US to protect employee data. Please consult a legal pro­fes­sion­al to ensure that all of your human resource processes are legally compliant.

What is the sig­nif­i­cance of the GDPR for human resource workers?

• If an employee’s personal data is no longer required, then it must be deleted
• Employees must actively consent to their use of data
• Employees have the right to know what data con­cern­ing them has been collected and processed by the company
• Employees may request a copy of all stored data from their employer
• In the event of data loss, employers must comply with the official reporting oblig­a­tions within the pre­scribed period of 72 hours

Through­out the course of dig­i­ti­za­tion, many personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion tasks can be sim­pli­fied. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, software man­u­fac­tur­ers are in­creas­ing­ly taking data pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions into account, making their products even more at­trac­tive. For example, a function within these programs allows data to be deleted au­to­mat­i­cal­ly after a certain time. Digital solutions are now available for almost every area of personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion.

A digital personnel file manages employee personnel data, just like a paper file. The digital personnel file has decisive ad­van­tages over the classic file. For example, the central ad­min­is­tra­tion of data relieves the personnel man­age­ment staff of several tasks, since the digital file can be processed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly by several users. Au­tho­rized in­di­vid­u­als can access the digital personnel file at any time. With the help of an au­then­ti­ca­tion system, access can only be granted to selected users. Limited access is also possible, so that only certain data can be viewed by one user.

Es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to working time and absence time man­age­ment, some processes can be managed digitally:

• Absence cal­cu­la­tion
• Fluc­tu­a­tion in the company
• Number of overtime hours
• Ab­sen­teeism due to illness, parental leave, etc.
• Vacation uti­liza­tion
• Time recording for flextime
• Trainings

Employee self-services are another way of reducing strain on personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion. Using certain tools, employees can perform in­di­vid­ual ad­min­is­tra­tive tasks in­de­pen­dent­ly. For example, they can view and change their personal data them­selves, which also helps to prevent input errors by personnel man­age­ment staff in par­tic­u­lar. Other possible employee self-services include the in­de­pen­dent pro­cess­ing of leave requests or self-ad­min­is­tered time recording. However, the out­sourc­ing of these processes brings ad­van­tages not only in terms of personnel ad­min­is­tra­tion, but also for employees. They gain a better insight into company processes: you can view the current pro­cess­ing status of a leave request, for example.

Click here for important legal dis­claimers.