Electronic labour book

For five years now, there have been talks about switching to electronic labor records and abandoning paper ones. Finally, this year, the matter has moved forward and, in addition to talks, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the first reading Draft Law No. 3623 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Electronic Employee Recordkeeping." This article will discuss electronic labor records and the draft law in particular.

When will an electronic work record book be available?

As we wrote above, the draft law was passed in the first reading, which means that in order to come into force, the president must pass and sign it. Only after its official publication will it come into force. This means that there are no electronic labor records yet, and we continue to keep records of employment in the old fashioned way.

We have a series of articles on our website about how to fill out employment records correctly:

• hiring employees and processing employment records;
• labor record book. Transfers and incentives;
• changes and corrections in the employment record book;
• making a record of dismissal in the employment record book.

Let's take a closer look at what the draft law No. 3632 proposes. The main idea of this draft law is to conduct employees' work activities electronically and automatically assign and accrue retirement pensions. For these purposes, lawmakers want to use the employee's personal electronic account on the Pension Fund's website.

If the draft law is adopted in the near future, employers and the Pension Fund will have a transition period of five years. During this time, the Pension Fund will have to enter information on all employees in the Register of Insured Persons on their employment history.

The Pension Fund will take information about insured persons from scanned copies of employment records. However, scanned copies will have to be submitted to the fund either by employees or employers. The draft law does not impose responsibility for data transfer solely on the employer.

However, if the employer is a legal entity, the employment records of employees are kept at the company, in which case the Pension Fund will contact the company directly with a request to digitize the employees' data and add it to the Fund's website to confirm the employees' work experience.

Today, the Pension Fund is asking employers to provide scanned copies of employment records for those employees who are eligible for old-age pensions.

After digitizing the employer's work record books and transferring this information to the Pension Fund, the draft law provides for the issuance of such books to each employee against signature. In other words, employers will no longer be required to keep their employees' employment records.

If the employee decides to resign before the employer digitizes his or her employment record book and transmits the information to the fund, then the employee will have to do so on his or her own. In this case, the employee cannot be refused to resign. The employment record book will need to be filled out in the prescribed manner and handed over to the employee.

After the abolition of paper labor records, employees' work activities will be recorded electronically in the Register of Insured Persons.

When an employee is dismissed, he or she will only need to be given a copy of the dismissal order.

Despite the fact that paper employment records will be canceled, at the request of the employee (if he or she is paranoid), you will be obliged to make a corresponding entry about the hiring, transfer or dismissal in the paper employment record.