Personnel man­age­ment – tasks, functions, and goals

Personnel man­age­ment is one of the corner­stones of a human resources 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 organise 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 creates 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 in carrying 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:

• Recognise 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 resources 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.

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 di­git­isa­tion, 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. Au­thor­ised 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 util­isa­tion
• 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.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article.