PFR Board Chairman Anton Drozdov has answered Komsomolskaya Pravda’s questions about electronic employment record books
Why do we need electronic employment record books?
There are two reasons. First of all, there are prerequisites for doing that. Most Russians are Internet users, and everyone has a cell phone and an email. Electronic train and plane tickets, online banking, cashless payments in stores, and even electronic homework diary and record books have become part of our life. There are people capable of using those. Secondly, we have created infrastructure to process, transmit, and protect this data.
What is wrong with paper-based books?
First of all, they are inconvenient. Both for employers and for employees. If you lose your employment record book, you will have to restore the information in full. This constitutes a big problem for many people. Secondly, there is a human factor, such as entries wrongly made by HR service staff. Such things often happened in the 1990s and are still seen on certain occasions. Thirdly, it is easier to falsify the paper-based document. Fraudsters are using that opportunity. It will be easier and cheaper to operate in the digital format. That is advantageous to everyone: citizens, business, and the government
Let us start at the beginning. What advantage will citizens have?
There is a simple example. You may need an abstract from your employment record book to apply for a loan, a visa, or something else. Now you have to request the abstract from the HR department. This does not happen quickly: the law says that the process takes three days. If the electronic document exists, you will receive the same service from the account on the PFR website within a minute. You can print your abstract and email it to any organization. It will be accepted everywhere. Besides, you may apply for assignment of your pension online. You do not need to bring another document in confirmation of your entitlements.
What is the advantage to employers?
First of all, they have to order forms for paper-based employment record books and spend money on those orders. Secondly, they have to store the books in their safe boxes because these documents are strictly accounted for. Thirdly, employees enter information in writing. Fourthly, books need to be restored if something happens. For instance, some people lost their employment record books in the Irkutsk region because of the flood emergency situation. Now employers have to restore those books, and that is a whole procedure that has to be accomplished.
It is one thing to enter information by hand, and it is a different thing to install an application and to understand how it works. Besides, it will clearly be necessary to pay extra …
Practically all employer reports have already turned electronic. Software developers will simply enlarge the package of accounting programs. It will cost nothing to business.
What about small companies? They rely on traditional methods …
Companies with less than 25 employees can use the insuring party’s account on our website. They can merely send the information online like an email.
The human factor will stay essential. Any incorrect information entered into the database could erase your pension!
Pension entitlements will stay absolutely safe. We have long been verifying information provided by employers with tax reports. The electronic employment record book will contain additional information about recruitment, dismissal, and transfer to another position, the current position (occupation), and number of relevant orders. I mean the entire information from the employment record book will be digitalized.
Will it be necessary to watch for the correct keeping of one’s employment record book by the employer?
That is the decision to be made individually. For instance, you are not watching over it for now. It is stored in the safe box of the HR department and you need it only when you take another job or need a copy. It will be possible to monitor the electronic employment record book online and even save it to your computer. Actually, you can already do so with your pension entitlements.
How exactly?
Use your account on the PFR website. There is no need for additional registration. You simply enter your login and passport received during registration with the public services portal. Most citizens already have their confirmed accounts. They can see how much contributions have been made by their employers and how individual pension points they have scored by now.
What will happen on January 1? Will employers give us our employment record books?
Not quite. Starting January 1, all companies will be monthly informing the PFR about labor activity of their employees. We are implementing a pilot project with major employers nowadays to assess the readiness of their HR departments and our information systems. There will be a one-year transitional period for citizens. They will use this period to decide whether they want to keep the paper-based employment record books or not. Unless a person makes this request to the employer, his or her employment record book will turn electronic on January 1, 2021, and he or she will be given the paper-based employment record book to keep. Only electronic employment record books will be available to young people who start their career after 2021.
So, I can keep my employment record book at the HR department. Will the employer send my information online while duplicating it on paper in that case?
Yes, it is true. All you need is to write the statement in a free style.
How will the information be protected? Can any hackers get access and erase all data?
The PFR database has been certified as a high-level system of personal data account and processing. We meet every information security requirement. We have been keeping personal records of pension entitlements since 1997. I mean the Fund has been working with personal data for more than 20 years. We also have an information security service. A failure or hacking, which leads to modification or destruction of data, are practically impossible. There are backup systems, which rule out the possibility of data loss.
What are other countries doing? Are employment record books paper-based or electronic there?
Some European countries were using employment record books or cards in the end of the previous century. By now, practically all data has been moved to information systems and databases of pension funds. For instance, in Slovenia employment record cards were mandatory till 2009 and replaced with the database of the Pension Fund afterwards. Another example is Spain, which has the Vida laboral (work cycle) database, which records every case of recruitment and dismissal of citizens and tax deductions.