- Keeping your employee records up to date is a vital part of running a business. You need to know key information about your employees, from their names and addresses to how much you pay them and how much time they take off. There are various ways you can keep employee records, depending on what you think is best for your business. Generally, most businesses are starting to move toward more high-tech ways of managing employee information. It makes things more secure, and it’s easier to update records across a whole system, instead of just in one file on one computer. If you need to store employee information, consider these options.
Paper Records
Keeping employee information on paper is now a pretty outdated way of doing it, although some companies still do. It means printing out, or even writing down, employee records and storing them in filing cabinets. While the cabinets can be locked, it does mean that the information can be accessed fairly easily by someone who perhaps shouldn’t have it. Paper records are also more annoying to update, and they’re not great if you’re trying to make your business green, either. Plus, they take up a lot of space in your office, which could be used for something more important.
The Simple Tech Way
Making your employee records digital is really the best way to go in the modern world. However, many small businesses have no need for sophisticated HR software. Manual methods of keeping digital records can do just fine. You can create a spreadsheet that you can update whenever you need to. With the function of filtering lists in Microsoft Excel, it’s easy to search for any information you need. This method might not be suited to larger companies, especially if the employee information needs to be shared with several people.
Cloud Storage
Using cloud storage can make it easier to share employee information with those who need to see it. You can still manually keep the information, but cloud storage means you only need to update one file and anyone who can view it will see any changes. You can use systems like Google Drive to share spreadsheets, forms or presentations. If you do choose to use an HR system, you can often connect your cloud storage to make everything even easier. Cloud storage can be useful for smaller businesses, as well as growing ones.
HR Software
There are also more sophisticated pieces of software that make managing employee records a breeze. HR systems can give access to employee records to superiors and HR personnel, as well as allowing all employees to view and update their own records. This can make it much more simple for someone to change their address or other contact details. These systems can also be used for other things like vacation requests or anything else an employee might need to talk to HR about.
However you choose to store employee records, it’s essential to make sure they are secure. Protect your employees’ information whether you store it on paper or digitally.
