NordFlux builds the digital personnel file as a structured filing system: registers by document type, access rights graded by role, health data kept separate, every access logged, retention and deletion periods stored in the system. Existing files are recognized and filed correctly instead of ending up as a collective PDF on a shared drive. Which retention period applies is determined by your tax advisor or specialist lawyer: we build the technology that enforces it.
The employment contract, the warning letter, the reference, and the sick note all sit in the same hanging file in the cabinet. Whoever can open the cabinet sees everything, and no one can say afterward who looked in and when.
The file is not a stack of scans, but a structure with rules. These five points make the difference between a folder of PDFs and a personnel file that holds up under an audit.
The scanned pages are read out via document recognition and assigned to the document type: employment contract, amendment, reference, warning letter, certificate. Every document ends up in the right register of the right file, instead of as a 200-page collective file on the drive. Unclear cases are presented to the system for review instead of guessing.
Effect The filing cabinet empties outThe manager sees the target agreement, but not the history of warning letters and not the sick notes. HR sees the file in full, payroll sees only the pay-related section. Rights attach to the document type, not to the folder everything happened to end up in.
Effect Access only where it belongsCertificates of incapacity to work, documents related to workplace reintegration management, and proof of severe disability are special categories of personal data under Article 9 GDPR. They get their own, more tightly restricted area of the file, accessible only to a defined group. Whoever opens something there appears in the log.
Effect A tight circle instead of an open folderEvery document type gets the retention period that applies to it, and after it expires the system presents the document for deletion or review. Microsoft 365 provides retention labels for this; which license tier covers this for you, we check during the initial analysis. We don't set the periods ourselves — those come from your tax advisor or specialist lawyer.
Effect Deadlines no longer run into a voidIf an employee requests information about their stored data under Article 15 GDPR, the system generates a complete compilation from their file instead of someone leafing through folders. The same applies on departure, when the file is closed for retention.
Savings Hours instead of days per requestWe choose the tools based on your case, not on a partner program. If Microsoft 365 is already running at your organization, that's usually the shortest path, and you don't need to buy an additional document management system.
The file resides in a SharePoint structure with registers by document type and permission groups by role. Accesses are logged, retention labels implement the periods. If you already have Microsoft 365, you pay nothing extra for the filing system.
Recognition and integrationPower Automate reads scanned pages and assigns them to the right document type and file. n8n retrieves ongoing documents such as payslips or contract changes from your payroll or HR software, provided it offers an interface. New documents thus land in the file on their own.
We build in the technical and organizational measures instead of documenting them afterward: graded rights, logging, data minimization, hosting in the EU. The legal assessment remains with your data protection officer; we provide them with the documentation they need for it.
From the initial analysis to a running digital personnel file in 30 days, at a fixed price instead of open-ended timesheets.
In 60 minutes, we look at how many existing files you have, which document types occur in them, and which payroll or HR software is in use. You get an honest answer about what's worth scanning and what's better left in the residual archive.
Together with your HR department, we define which registers exist, who may see which document type, and which retention period applies to which type. If there is a works council, involve it here, not only at go-live. You then receive a fixed-price quote.
We set up the filing system with rights and periods and run the recognition on a batch of real files. This sample shows you in black and white how reliably the matching works on your documents, before the rest follows.
The file goes into operation, ongoing documents flow into it automatically. Your HR department is shown how to adjust registers, rights, and periods themselves, so you don't have to call us for every small thing.
If not just personnel documents but also contracts, delivery notes, and certificates from the entire inbox should be filed automatically and monitored for deadlines, that's the bigger sibling of this page. If instead you're concerned with the process chain from the signature onward (IT access, equipment, checklists), take a look at automated onboarding.
In the free initial analysis, we go through this together in 60 minutes, without obligation and without jargon. Afterward you'll know what digitizing your personnel files costs and what it saves you.
Yes, and in practice it is usually superior to the paper file, because access can be graded and logged. Article 32 GDPR requires appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect the data: a filing cabinet whose key lies in the drawer meets this less well than a filing system with rights and logging. What matters is not whether the file is digital, but how it is structured. The legal assessment of your specific case is made by your data protection officer; we provide the technology and the documentation for it.
That depends on the document type and is not a question we are permitted to answer for you. For some documents, the evidentiary value of the signed original matters, for others the scan is sufficient. Clarify this with your specialist lawyer or tax advisor and give us the list: we build the filing system so that a small residual archive for originals and the digital file for everything else work side by side.
There is not one single period, but different periods depending on the document type: payroll- and tax-relevant documents are treated differently from application documents or warning letters. NordFlux does not provide legal advice and does not set these periods. What we do: we store in the system the period that your tax advisor or specialist lawyer names for each document type, so that it takes effect automatically and doesn't depend on someone remembering.
If you have a works council, involve it early. Under Section 87 (1) No. 6 of the German Works Constitution Act (BetrVG), it has a co-determination right regarding technical devices suited to monitoring employee behavior or performance, and this question regularly arises with a logging file. In practice, it helps to clearly name the distinction: what is logged is who opened a file, not how someone works. We supply the technical documentation for this.
Implementation runs at a fixed price, the amount of which depends on the scope: number of existing files, whether we scan or you have a service provider for that, number of document types, and the integration with your payroll or HR software. After the free initial analysis, you receive this fixed price, no open-ended timesheets. Setup typically takes 30 days; scanning the existing stock continues in parallel depending on volume.
