Electronic Employment Contract

• Labor market in Russia
• Electronic workbook
• Working in Russia (portal)
• Federal Labor and Employment Service (Rostrud)
• Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation
• Pension Fund of Russia
• Graduate Employment Monitoring Portal

2025: The government of the Russian Federation allowed companies to send employees electronic notice of dismissal

In December 2025, the government commission on legislative activities approved amendments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, allowing employees to send notice of dismissal in digital format. This bill also provides for the introduction of digital document management related to personnel. Read more here.

2021: Russia adopted a law allowing the conclusion of an employment contract remotely

On November 17, 2021, the State Duma adopted in the third reading a law allowing the conclusion of an employment contract remotely. Corresponding amendments to the Labor Code.

As reported on the website of the State Duma, the law enshrines the possibility and mechanisms for maintaining and using documents related to work in electronic form without duplication on paper to create large opportunities for remote employment.

So, the applicant will be able to choose an employer from another region, remotely undergo an interview and conclude an employment contract.

Russia has adopted a law allowing the conclusion of an employment contract remotely

Electronic document management will be carried out through a single digital platform "Work in Russia" (including interaction through the portal of public services). It can also be conducted through the employer's information system that meets the requirements of the Labor Code.

Employers will have to warn employees about the transition to electronic personnel document management. Employees can refuse such an innovation. The collective bargaining agreement may state that an employer can extend document maintenance digitally to all employees if more than 50% of them agreed to such a format.

By the second reading, a number of amendments were made to the bill, which limited the application of the regulatory act: innovations do not affect dismissal orders, work books and information formed in electronic form on the labor activities of employees, acts of industrial accident and documents confirming the passage of occupational safety briefings.

According to the new rules, an enhanced qualified or unqualified electronic signature will be used in the execution of documents.

The adoption of the bill will allow you to quickly receive state, municipal, banking and other services where the provision of data from the employer is required, the explanatory note says.[1]

2020

On the federal portal "Work in Russia" launched a subsystem of electronic personnel document management

On November 2, 2020, BFT announced the completion of a federal-scale project - the development and launch of an electronic personnel document management (ECD) subsystem on the federal portal "Work in Russia."

On the basis of the portal, a federal experiment is being carried out to digitize the relationship between the employer and the employee. For the technological support of the experiment, BFT developed and implemented an electronic personnel document management subsystem on the portal. The first 50 organizations are connected to the subsystem. In the near future, it is planned to connect about 100 more organizations. Read more here.

In Russia, the transition to a fully electronic personnel document flow began

In October 2020, an experiment began on the transition to electronic personnel document management (ECD). It is held on the basis of the portal "Work in Russia." Read more here.

Putin instructed to establish document management between employers and employees through public services

On July 6, 2020, it became known that the president Russia Vladimir Putin instructed to establish an exchange of documents between employees and employers through the portal. public services The head states did this following a meeting held on June 10, 2020 on the development of information and communication technologies and communications.

According to the official website of the Kremlin, by August 3, 2020, the Government of the Russian Federation needs to work out the issues of "using a single portal of state and municipal services to organize the exchange between employees and employers of electronic documents related to the regulation of labor relations and information about labor activity."

Putin instructed to establish the exchange of documents between employees and employers through public services

Mikhail Oseevsky, President of Rostelecom, made a proposal to exchange documents in the field of labor through the website of public services at the meeting. He then said that the transition to electronic document management is necessary to maintain the remote work regime, which has become popular in the country amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The portal of public services will make it faster and easier to organize such a document flow, Oseevsky said.

Obviously, today there is a need to translate part of this document flow into electronic form in order to support the possibilities of remote work, - said the head of Rostelecom. - It seems to us that it would be advisable to use for this the Unified portal of public services, where more than 100 million people are already registered, their accounts are available, and such processes could be organized quite easily and quickly.

Earlier, deputies State Dumas and members of the Federation Council developed a bill according to which an employer and an employee who works remotely will be able to exchange personnel documents in electronic form.^[2]

The Ministry of Labor approved the rules of the experiment on the transition to electronic personnel documents

The Ministry of Labor approved the procedure for organizing and conducting an experiment on the transition to electronic personnel documents. The corresponding order was posted on the official website of legal information on June 17, 2020.

Procedure for Organization and Conduct of the Experiment

As noted in the order, until December 1, 2020, the Ministry of Labor may additionally include employers in the list of participants in the experiment on the basis of applications received from them. The end date of the experiment in the document is indicated on March 31, 2021. However, the specific date of its start, according to the document, is determined by the employer participating in it independently. As well as "a specific list of documents in respect of which the experiment is carried out."

When choosing the employer's information system or the "Work in Russia" system, it is necessary to determine the list of types of documents related to work, which will be created, used and stored in the employer's information system, and which in the "Work in Russia" system, - noted in the order of the Ministry of Labor.

The portal "Work in Russia" is the federal state information system of Rostrud, created to help citizens find work, and employers - employees.

According to the order, it will undergo trial operation, the results of which will be analyzed. Its software tools will also be modernized and the software will be improved. Pilot operation of the Electronic Personnel Document Management subsystem of the Work in Russia system will begin on July 20 and will last until September 4, 2020. To hold it until July 1, 2020, the Ministry of Labor will determine employers - participants in the experiment, who will express their consent to participate in the process.

Until December 1, 2020, the Ministry of Labor may additionally include employers in the list of participants in the experiment on the basis of applications received from them. (photo - cdn.iz.ru)

In order to carry out electronic personnel document management in the Work in Russia system, employers participating in the experiment must be registered in the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA) and receive an enhanced qualified electronic signature (UKEP) of the employer, the order says.

Employees of employers participating in the experiment participating in trial operation must also be registered with the ESIA. The number of employees during trial operation is not limited and is determined by employers. Their lists must be submitted to the Ministry of Labor by July 10, 2020. From October 1, 2020, all interested employers and employees can take part in the experiment using the Work in Russia system.

Employers participating in the experiment during its conduct send information to the Ministry of Labor in electronic form about the results of the experiment and proposals for amending labor legislation and (if necessary) to the legislation of the Russian Federation on employment of the population, regulating the use of personnel electronic documents.

The Ministry of Labor, together with Rostrud, on the basis of a generalization of the information received, prepares reports on the results of the experiment and sends them to the Russian Tripartite Commission for the Regulation of Social and Labor Relations.

Evaluation of the effectiveness and effectiveness of the experiment is reflected in the reports according to the following criteria:

• the number of economic activities, which include employers - participants in the experiment;
• the number of regions of Russia on the territory of which employers are participants in the experiment (their divisions);
• main types of structural subdivisions of organizations whose employees participate in the experiment;
• the planned number of employees who will be invited by employers participating in the experiment to use electronic documents related to work, after making appropriate amendments to the legislation;
• number of complaints/disputes with employees;
• the number of employers/employees who withdrew from the experiment;
• the number of employers - participants in the experiment using the "Work in Russia" system;
• the number of changes made during the experiment to local regulatory legal acts of employers - participants in the experiment;
• number of reasonable proposals for amendments to the legislation of the Russian Federation regulating the use of personnel electronic documents.

Following the consideration by the commission, the Ministry of Labor, together with Rostrud, clarifies the reports, after which it sends them to the government of the Russian Federation.

Business opinion

TAdviser interviewed a number of large companies about their interest in participating in a new experiment on electronic personnel document management, as well as its possible difficulties. Some of the respondents did not express readiness.

We have not yet applied for participation in the experiment. During the experiment, difficulties may arise related to the current functionality of the Work in Russia portal, in particular the lack of integration mechanisms with employers' information systems, - told TAdviser in Rostelecom.

Raiffafsenbank told TAdviser that the company will monitor the development of the initiative, as well as relevant legislative changes. At the same time, the bank noted that, according to labor law, the employee must sign most of the significant personnel documents personally on paper, and the list of documents that can be signed with a qualified electronic signature (KEP) is limited. At the same time, it is issued for a fee, only in a certification center accredited by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, and is valid only for one year. The software required to work with a qualified electronic signature must be certified by the Federal Security Service.

The company "CROC" prefers to take the "position of an active observer" when translating personnel documents into electronic form. According to the director for administrative and personnel issues and social policy of "CROC" Liubov Trunina, for the organization, the process of transferring personnel documents to electronic form as a whole is "transparent and understandable."

We lack legislative regulation. Where it is possible to use an electronic signature in accordance with current legislation, we tried to do this, but a number of inconveniences were found. For example, an electronic signature is actively used on electronic trading platforms, but for individuals in the status of candidates it is not so easy to get it, - said Liubov Trunina.

Speaking about the main difficulty of the experiment to translate personnel documents into electronic form, she noted that according to its results, "many companies will assess the level of their automation from a different angle and understand that they do not yet have a" base "for introducing an electronic signature."

It is important that lawmakers hear and take into account the opinions of companies that will be directly involved in the experiment, as well as those who are active observers, Liubov Trunina added.

The fact that the company is considering the possibility of participating in the TAdviser experiment was announced by Yekaterina Ignatova, HR Director of Technoserv.

This is an opportunity to test changes, to test how it will actually work in practice. Of course, there are certain tasks that we first need to work out together with other divisions of the company. Much depends on the situation with the coronavirus pandemic: perhaps the method of informing against signature today is the biggest difficulty in this project, - said Ekaterina Ignatova.

She also identified several areas that need to be worked out during the experiment.

The first is related to human resources - additional time for employees, their training, setting up relevant processes, and execution control. I will say even more - an individual person will be required to conduct the experiment. The second area is technical tasks - obtaining access, issuing powers of attorney, other documentation, system inaccessibility, format errors, etc. The employer will not be able to solve all these issues on its own, support from the organizers, quick contacts will be required, only a common mailbox will not be able to solve all issues. And the third direction is security issues - control over possible data leaks. The solution can be the division of responsibility between the employer and the working group on the part of the organizers of the experiment, - said Ekaterina Ignatova.

Softline plans to take part in the experiment. Soon, the organization will host a meeting of the working group on participation in it, where the company will understand all the stages of the project and begin to implement it within itself. The company considers the key indicators of the success of the experiment in the future to reduce paper document circulation, the ease of using electronic personnel documents as such, and the efficiency of exchanging such documents with employees. At the same time, according to Nadezhda Sapronova, head of the Softline statistics and personnel accounting department, the procedure for organizing and conducting the experiment is somewhat chaotic.

From the moment companies made the list to the present. In addition, there is no clear understanding of the order and legality of the actions taken, - said Nadezhda Sapronova.

Background

On April 24, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law "On conducting an experiment on the use of electronic documents related to work." The law allows you to translate into electronic format all personnel documents, including employment contracts, orders for admission and dismissal, orders for business trips and vacations. The purpose of the experiment is to create and develop mechanisms for maintaining and using personnel electronic documents without duplication on paper, as well as to prepare proposals for amending the legislation of the Russian Federation.

This experiment is being carried out in Russia for the second time^[3]For the first time, the Ministry of Labor conducted an experiment on the translation into electronic form of documents and information about an employee on labor relations in Russia in 2018 together with 11 large employer organizations: ("Russian Railways" Russian Railways),,,, Gazprombank,, "Autovazom",, Rosbank,, and on the "Mechel" Severstal Management Rostelecom Sibur Alfa-Bank Tatneft basis of "Agrotorgom" duplication of electronic documents on paper.

The results of the experiment showed the possibility of preparing a legislative framework for the transition of personnel to electronic document management, for which it was decided to conduct another experiment with an unlimited number of participants from among employers and without duplication of documents on paper.

However^[4] May 19, 2020, it became known that 71^[5] organizations will take part in the new experiment on electronic personnel document management^[6]Such information was contained in the draft order of the Ministry of Labor "On approval of the list of employers - participants in the experiment on the use of electronic documents related to work," sent by the ministry for consideration by the Russian tripartite commission for the regulation of social and labor relations. According to the order, large organizations will mainly participate in the experiment, including Russian Railways,,, Sberbank,, Yandex,, "Russian Post" PepsiCo Holdings() and Unilever Rus. Wildberries "Mobile Telesystems" MTS "Megaphone"

Putin allowed to hire and dismiss employees via the Internet

On April 24, 2020, the president Russia Vladimir Putin signed a law on an experiment on keeping electronic documents by employers. Thanks to the new initiative, it will be possible to conclude and sign employment contracts without to the Internet using paper. The same goes for the dismissal procedure.

As Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes with reference to the deputy head of the Ministry of Labor Vsevolod Vukolov, the application of the law will be voluntary for companies, but even at the stage of preparing the bill, about 80 organizations, including the Social Insurance Fund, spoke out in their practice.

Putin signed a law on an experiment on the conduct of electronic documents by employers

According to the law, an experiment on the maintenance of electronic documents related to labor relations with employees, in respect of which the labor legislation of the Russian Federation provides for paperwork or familiarization of an employee for signature, without duplication on paper, will be held until March 31, 2021 inclusive.

The explanatory note to the bill said that the employer, at whose enterprise the experiment will take place, will decide which documents will be transferred to electronic form and which structural units will participate in the experiment. It is known that the experiment does not concern work books for which a special legal regime has already been established.

Duplication of documents on paper is not expected. The law also enshrines the obligation of the employer to issue electronic documents at the request of the employee within three working days.

Employers can use as their information system to work with electronic documents in the field of personnel workflow, or they can use the capabilities of the state portal "Work in Russia," the Ministry of Labor explained^[7].

Notes