At work, I often have to look for the necessary data on the Internet, and lately, I regularly come across articles with headings about the abolition of work books. As far as I understand, we are not talking about a complete refusal to maintain this document, but about the formation of a work book in electronic form.

To be honest, I don't like this idea at all. There are several reasons at once, and the main one is that in Russia there are almost no services that work fully and are really beneficial.

Even on the now popular website of the State Service, failures regularly occur, and in the field, in the regions, officials and in general do not take into account the actions performed using the electronic service.

Unfortunately, the likelihood that the replacement of paper forms with electronic ones will actually be efficient and effective is not very high. However, let's deal with this issue in the article.

The last three decades have been talking about the likelihood of canceling work books. This is due, first of all, to the fact that Russia is trying to adopt the experience of other countries in everything. In other states, such documentation is not used and the procedure for fixing a person's work experience takes place in a slightly different order.

In the future, pension provision is established on the basis of information about the contributions transferred to the relevant funds.

The Russian FIU did not have such opportunities before, therefore, the presence of a work book made it possible to calculate a person's work experience and accrue state security to him. In 2001, the situation changed, as the data began to be submitted by policyholders in electronic format.

Since the data has been received and stored in a special database for more than 17 years, Medvedev announced the need to switch to electronic workbooks. There is no exact answer to the question of when paper media will be canceled.

According to preliminary information, this will happen in early 2019 or in 2020, but the date is still preliminary and there is no more accurate information.

What factors hinder the final decision on timing

It would seem that it is possible to make a decision already in 2019 and issue an appropriate order to abandon paper forms.

For example, you can use the personal account of the State Services portal as a base and for each Russian add personal data about work activity there. Despite the complexity of the task, these actions are quite accessible.

In fact, everything is not as simple as it seems and there are some points that do not allow you to quickly make a decision. The fact is that many Russians began to work before 2001, and for them, a paper form is the only document that will confirm that a citizen has the necessary work experience and obtain the right to state assistance.

Some Russians even have old (Soviet) style books. In this regard, a complete rejection of paper documentation is not yet possible. You can learn more about this issue from the video:

What actions will be taken in connection with the abolition of paper work books

Some assumptions have already been voiced by experts in this field. After the abolition of paper forms, enterprises will not have to take care of the safety and maintenance of work books, which will significantly reduce costs in this direction.

Additionally, there will be no problems taking into account the length of service of employees, since special information bases will be created for this purpose, where information about all people with official employment will be placed.

In addition to the described actions, a special web resource with personal accounts will be developed for employers. You will need to visit the portal online after a simple registration. Employers will have their access and will be able to track the data and make the necessary additions or amendments.

Employees will be able to access the site using their own personal data and an individual password.

Advantages and disadvantages of switching to electronic workbooks

The introduction of such documentation in electronic format has several advantages and significant advantages at once. It is worth highlighting the following points:

• the dismissal procedure will be significantly simplified, since the employer will not need to enter data into the document, and then, hand over the book to the hands of the resigned person. To do this, it will be enough to make a note in your personal account and that's it;
• it will be easier to make changes to the document if an error is identified or inaccuracies are made when filling out the TC;
• it will be possible to quickly check the track record of the applicant for a place;
• in case of loss of data or in the event of liquidation of the company, it will not be difficult to restore information;
• employers will not need to store documents and issue them to citizens.

In addition to the advantages, there are some disadvantages of introducing labor forms in electronic form. As disadvantages, it should be noted:

• when canceling paper documentation, it will not be easy for the employer to check whether the applicant for the position has various reprimands and unpleasant reasons for dismissal;
• technical level problems may arise;
• some employers may behave incorrectly and write a negative review on the site out of a desire to annoy the former employee.

In any case, the final decision has not been made and for now paper work books will continue to be used. The transition to electronic media will be officially announced, and special instructions will be provided to those responsible for filling out and processing the documentation of such a plan.

Still, it will take place, and the exact date is already known: January 1, 2020. The Government of the Russian Federation has proposed three bills for consideration, providing for a number of major amendments to labor and pension legislation. Bill No. 748684-7 on the abolition of paper work books and the transition to their electronic versions was adopted by the State Duma in the first reading. Let's talk about what awaits employers and ordinary citizens in connection with these changes in 2020.

When will work books be canceled in Russia

The concept of "electronic work books" is absent in Russian legislation. The changes introduced by the law operate with the term “information about labor activity”. Now all information about employees, their length of service, transfers to other positions, dismissals will be transmitted via electronic communication channels to the Pension Fund. A gradual transition from paper books to electronic books is planned during 2020. The date of cancellation of work books on paper is January 1, 2021. All paper work books from 01/01/2021 must be handed over to employees, and they will not be required from newly hired employees when they are hired, nor will paper work books be issued to those who first get a job in 2021.

The bill allows an employee to have a work book on paper after the specified period - he can write an application for keeping the book with the employer and maintaining it in paper form. However, this does not exempt the employer from the electronic transfer of data to the FIU for such employees. The employer must accept these applications only within the prescribed period - until the end of 2020. If the application is not received before 01/01/2021, the work will be handed over to the employee. Thus, the responsibility for the safety of the forms of work books returned to employees is removed from the employer.

Three draft laws on the abolition of work books in Russia

All of the above changes are introduced by bill No. 748684-7. According to it, the Labor Code of the Russian Federation is supplemented by a new article 66.1 “Information on labor activity”, which outlines the procedure for canceling paper work books and the algorithm for switching to an electronic accounting system. The bill also regulates a set of preparatory measures for employers. They are required during 2020 to:

make the necessary changes to local regulations, the collective agreement (if necessary);

notify the staff in writing against signature of a change in the procedure for accounting for work books;

prepare for the electronic transfer of data on employees: ensure the availability of a technical base, personnel and appropriate software.

Another draft law No. 748744-7, amending the law on accounting No. 27-FZ of 04/01/1996, obliges employers to submit a new monthly SZV-TD report "Information on labor activity", starting from January 2020. The deadlines for its submission are similar to the SZV report -M - no later than the 15th day of the month following the reporting one. But from January 1, 2021, this report will need to be generated and submitted to the FIU on the next business day after the date of issuance of the order to hire, dismiss an employee, transfer to another job. Companies with 25 or more employees are required to provide this information in electronic format. Thus, many companies will switch to electronic personnel document management with the Pension Fund.

The third draft law No. 748758-7 amends Art. 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation and introduces liability for all employers for the repeated transmission of false or incomplete information about the labor activity of personnel and for violation of the deadlines for their submission. So far, sanctions are provided only in the form of a warning to the employer's officials. But, perhaps, a fine of a certain amount will also be introduced, because. the law is still under consideration.

How do employees find out about their work experience?

The abolition of work books in 2020 in the form of paper forms raises a legitimate question among employees: how can they find out information about their work activity, length of service, etc. Bill No. 748684-7 provides for the receipt of this data by the employee from the following sources:

from your current or last employer in the form of a certified certificate in paper form or an electronic document signed with an EDS; information is issued on the day of dismissal or upon request within 3 days after receipt of the relevant application by the personnel department;

through the MFC - on paper, duly certified;

in the FIU - in electronic or paper format to choose from;

through the website of the State Services in electronic form.

The ongoing reform to abolish work books offers a number of benefits for both companies and their employees:

An electronic work book cannot be forged or lost: in case of loss or damage, it is not necessary to bypass all former employers to restore records.

It will be convenient for employees to apply for public services and the appointment of pensions and benefits: there is no need to present a paper copy of the work book every time to confirm the length of service.

The PFR will have a single electronic database for assigning pensions, which will simplify this procedure.

When hiring, the personnel department will promptly receive all data on the seniority of employees.

Employers will reduce the cost of purchasing and storing work book forms.

Meanwhile, experts also point out shortcomings of the ongoing reform. These include the issue of the safety of personal data in the FIU system. At the moment, there have been no failures and information leakage, but the risk of confidential data falling into the hands of fraudsters always exists.

It is also possible that the data may disappear due to the fault of the state. There are many examples of underestimation of seniority by the PFR, and in the absence of sufficient seniority, a refusal to assign an insurance pension occurs, while not many citizens will live until the appointment of a social pension in connection with the ongoing pension reform. Recall that the retirement age for social old-age pension is set at 70 for men and 65 for women. The insurance pension will be received by women from the age of 60, and men from 65.

And one more minus of the bills being introduced for the employers themselves: it adds more reports to them and increases the responsibility for the regularity of the provided personnel information.

Conclusion

Answering the question whether paper work books will be canceled, we can say that most likely yes, they will. The government has been considering implementing these changes since 2017. Another question is how effective the ongoing reform will be. The transition to electronic personnel document management and its maintenance will be associated for many companies with significant resource costs, which may provoke further evasion by employers from formalizing employees in the state and paying gray salaries. On the other hand, the digitization of personnel data, provided that they are completely preserved, will simplify the procedure for confirming seniority when interacting with government agencies.

Order dated April 18, 2016 No. 708-r. The bill proposes to amend the Labor Code, providing for the regulation of labor relations with employees working for employers - individuals who are individual entrepreneurs, which belong to the category of micro-enterprises. The features of labor regulation of persons working in organizations that belong to the category of micro-enterprises are established. The adoption of the draft law will help to increase the level of protection of the labor rights of workers by formalizing labor relations with them in the manner prescribed by labor legislation and reduce the risk of imposing sanctions on employers that belong to the category of micro-enterprises for violating labor laws.

The draft federal law “On Amendments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation with regard to the peculiarities of regulating the labor of persons working for employers that belong to the category of micro-enterprises” (hereinafter referred to as the draft law) was developed by the Ministry of Labor pursuant to the instructions of the President of Russia following a meeting of the State Council on the Development of Small Business and medium-sized businesses on April 7, 2015 (No. Pr-815GS dated April 25, 2015, paragraph three of subparagraph “b” of paragraph 4) on the preparation of proposals for the use of a standard form of an employment contract at micro-enterprises instead of personnel records management.

The draft law proposes to amend the Labor Code (hereinafter referred to as the Code), providing for the regulation of labor relations with employees working for employers - individuals who are individual entrepreneurs that belong to the category of micro-enterprises, as well as to supplement the Code with a norm establishing the specifics of regulating the labor of persons working in organizations that belong to the category of microenterprises.

The draft law provides that an employer that belongs to the category of micro-enterprises in accordance with the law may not adopt local regulations containing labor law norms. In this case, the terms and conditions, which, in accordance with the Code, are regulated by local regulations, must be included in the employment contract, the standard form of which is approved by the Government.

In addition, the draft law provides for the possibility, by agreement of the parties to the employment contract, not to enter information about work for such an employer in the work book of an employee, and when concluding an employment contract for the first time, not to draw up a work book. In these cases, an entry on the date and grounds for termination of the employment contract is made in the employment contract upon dismissal. By agreement of the parties, the place of storage of the work book is also determined (with the employee or with the employer).

In the event of a change in the category of the employer in accordance with the legislation in order to bring labor relations in line with the requirements established by the Code, the draft law proposes to establish a four-month period from the date of the change in the category in the unified state register of small and medium-sized businesses.

The adoption of the draft law will help to increase the level of protection of the labor rights of workers by formalizing labor relations with them in the manner prescribed by labor legislation and reduce the risk of imposing sanctions on employers that belong to the category of micro-enterprises for violating labor laws.

The bill was considered and approved at a meeting of the Government of the Russian Federation on April 14, 2016.

This did not happen suddenly and started a long time ago:

By 2012 it is planned to abolish work books

Labor books are planned to be abolished by 2012. This was announced at a press conference on the topic "Modernization of the labor legislation of the Russian Federation" by the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia Alexander Safonov. "The work book should be abolished. It is the employment contract that is the most effective method of protecting the rights of an employee," he stressed.

The employment contract, in his opinion, will be able to almost completely replace the "outdated" work book. So, for the appointment and calculation of pensions, it is no longer needed - there is a PFR accounting, and the qualifications assigned can be confirmed with a diploma.

Wherein Safonov noted that they will get rid of work books gradually, with the introduction of the so-called transition period. For example, those who have been working since the 90s with a work book - let them work on it, but those who after the 2000s can refuse it, the official gave an example. It is important that during the transition period (and it can be up to 10 years) the employee himself will be able to decide whether he needs a work book or not. Much of this is, of course, a matter of habit. As told Safonov, work books are not used abroad, they have been preserved, perhaps, only in Russia and the CIS countries.

Corresponding changes to the legislation are planned to be introduced by 2012. They will not have time to deal with this issue quickly, because, as rightly noted Alexander Safonov, the autumn and spring sessions of the State Duma are already scheduled to consider too many important bills.

The PFR branch for the Chechen Republic recalls that very soon paper work books will be canceled and new ones will be introduced - electronic ones. What is the basis for such a global change? How would this happen? And what will be brought into the work of the Pension Fund in connection with this? These and other questions are answered by Mokhmad-Emi Akhmadov, the manager of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation for the Chechen Republic.

- Mokhmad-Emi Isaevich, what caused such a change?

For several years now, a program for the transition to electronic circulation of information on the employment of citizens has been considered at the state level.

What is a work book anyway? A personal document of the established form, which contains information about the work activity of the employee, the history of his job transitions. The existing sample document has been in use since 2004. A work book is issued to citizens who first got a job, and if it is lost, a duplicate is issued to the employee. The document is filled out in the personnel department and stored there while the person works in the organization.

I must say that in many countries work books have ceased to be available in principle. For example, in the same Europe, the work book in our understanding is considered an obsolete tool. There, a long time ago, the work book was completely replaced by electronic databases. This was done because in practice there are many complaints about paper documents. And they arise not only from their owners, but also from employers.

- And what exactly are the claims?

The main dissatisfaction is connected with the following. Firstly, the paper form of the work book becomes unusable over the years, can be lost or damaged. And the procedure for its recovery is quite complicated, and there is a risk of complete loss of some data. Secondly, there are a lot of episodes of fraud with books, since the forms are freely available, which is why there are so many fakes. Thirdly, the need to allocate special premises for storing employee books; this is especially true for large enterprises with more than 100 employees. In this case, you have to organize special racks to store so many personal documents of employees. And, of course, the labor costs of time and its payment, which are spent on certifying the copies made, creating extracts manually, etc., are in no way justified.

- And what is changing now?

So far, nothing has changed. We are on the way of legal substantiation of such a metamorphosis. The Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation, within the framework of the federal program "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation", has developed an appropriate bill that will affect and take into account the interests of all employees. It is assumed that from January 1, 2021, information about the labor activity of employees will be kept only in electronic form, with the exception of employees who have submitted an application for maintaining work books on paper. And we should all be prepared that this will happen soon.

- What will be the work book of the new format?

- The document will be an electronic file that will be stored in the personalized accounting system. Both in paper and in electronic form, the essence of the work book does not change: this is the main document of every working citizen of the country.

- Mokhmad-Emi Isaevich, can we at least somehow outline the advantages of electronic work books today?

Of course, there are many advantages here. This is, first of all, the impossibility of falsifying books, since all information will be easily verified electronically. The risk that information about a person's professional activities will be lost is reduced. Opportunities appear: to constantly improve the created system and introduce additional auxiliary resources; protect information from errors and typos, which are often made when filling out labor documents; employees will be able to respond quickly to the actions of the employer to fill out their work books; interested structures will be able, if necessary, without an employee to see all the necessary information about him.

It also greatly simplifies the management of personnel production; protects owners of books from employers who do not comply with the deadlines for issuing books upon dismissal; relieves the employee from the need to contact the employer each time for a copy of the work book, when he needs it. It will be enough just to send your data from the information system to the place of demand.

The pluses include standardization, maintaining personnel information in specialized databases. Having gained access to it, employees will be able to control all the information that is entered into their work book online. Well, and, of course, efficiency. And when making a transition from one job to another, and when applying for a remote job.

- Are the deadlines for the transition to electronic work books known today?

- It is expected that in 2019 all necessary changes will be made to labor legislation, as well as technical issues will be resolved.

The transfer of the paper version to the electronic version will take place in stages and will begin with the fact that new data will be entered by employers in electronic format. Then, gradually, all the data written in the forms earlier will be transferred to computer databases.

From 2021, all work books will be kept only in electronic form. Citizens and organizations for whom the usual form seems most convenient can continue to keep paper work books along with electronic ones. However, for those who got a job for the first time since 2021, such an opportunity is not provided.

So far, no one is going to completely abandon traditional paper work books. If an employee wants his documents to be kept on paper, this cannot be prevented. Despite the fact that in this case, employers will have to do double work - to comply with the requirement to transfer data to the state information system and at the same time maintain paper documents. To do this, the employee must write to the employer an application to continue maintaining a paper document.

From January 1, 2021, employers will have to give paper work books to employees, as they will no longer be responsible for their storage and maintenance. An exception will be made only by persons who write an application to continue maintaining a paper document. The draft law on this matter states that the maintenance of work books on paper will not be carried out from January 1, 2027.

- Mokhmad-Emi Isaevich, what role is assigned to the territorial bodies of the Pension Fund in this regard? Has anything changed in functionality?

Employers will submit all information about the labor activity of their employees in electronic form to the bodies of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation: on hiring, transfer to another position or dismissal (date, order number and its content).

In other words, accounting for seniority is supposed to be included in the current function of the Pension Fund - maintaining individual (personalized) records of insured persons.

It looks quite logical, because now double accounting of the length of service of employees is being carried out: by the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation - on the personal accounts of employees and by employers - in work books. Moreover, the length of service according to the work book is not taken into account when assigning a pension from the moment the employee is registered in the system of compulsory pension insurance and he is assigned SNILS.

All information about the experience of the PFR is taken exclusively according to the data of the individual personal account of the employee. Therefore, electronic work books will eliminate unnecessary duplicity in accounting for seniority.

From January 1, 2020, the employer will be required to submit information about the labor activity of insured persons to the PFR information system. The employer will have to submit information about labor activity on a monthly basis no later than the 15th day of the month following the reporting one. From January 1, 2021, such information in cases of hiring or dismissal must be sent no later than the business day following the date of issuance of the document that is the basis for hiring or dismissal.