Employee File Management and HR Salary Calculation – Sample Personal Data Sheet

Keeping employee files up-to-date allows saving a significant amount of time in various administrative areas, such as salary calculations, benefit and allowances payments, etc. It is therefore important to determine how these files will be structured and to keep them regularly updated, in order to ensure the accuracy of the available data. As a rule, the management of personnel files and their regular update is the responsibility of the Human Resources Department.

TOOLS

Employee personnel files are customarily divided into sections such as:

  1. Job Application / Employment contract and specific clauses
  2. Employee assessment forms (end of the probation period / periodic appraisals)
  3. Summary of the technical data for the calculation of the salary (gross salary, contributions, allowances, vacation entitlement…)
  4. Standard administrative documents (copy of the AVS card, allocation requests, work permit applications, bank details, tax declaration forms…)
  5. Insurance statements and claims (accidents, loss of income, illness…)
  6. Pension fund-related forms (affiliation request, transfer and exit forms)
PRACTICE

As a rule, the creation of a personnel file for a new employee requires at least the following steps, whatever personnel administration software is used:

1. Collecting basic employee HR data: First of all, a special form tailored to request the specific information needed by the company should be filled in by new employees. This relates in particular to their contact information and bank details (for pension fund affiliation and salary payment and reach them in case of absence). This requires a personal data sheet (sample) to be filled in by each employee. The usual documents should also be considered, such as extracting a copy of the family register, the AVS card, the children’s school attendance certificates, etc.

2. Processing the data necessary to the calculation of the salary, professional expenses and social insurance contributions: It is also important to consider how the technical data used for the calculation of salaries and social insurance contributions may be processed. Moreover, any changes in one of these parameters shall be immediately modified in the payroll software’s database; the accuracy of the data that will be passed on to the Accounting and Finance department – and thus the accuracy of the pay sheet itself! – indeed depends on this. Such technical data may typically include:

  • The salary class of the employee
  • The employment rate
  • The gross salary
  • The bank account into which the salary will be paid
  • Professional expenses (meals, transport…)
  • The amount of the 13th month pay
  • The number of vacation days per month or year, depending on the software, system settings and choices imposed by the Finance department
  • The rates of the diverse statutory contributions (social insurance, occupational pension plans)
  • Other allowances (family, household benefits, training incentive…)

It may also be useful to print out a summary table of this technical data and attach it to the employee personnel file. In general, this table is automatically generated by the payroll software.

3. Processing the data related to the employee’s pension fund affiliation: Every organization should have three types of data processing forms; these documents are usually provided by the pension fund.

A. Affiliation application form: filling in the entry of the employee in the company.

B. Transfer application form: Must be completed during one of the following events:

  • A change in the employee’s marital status
  • The birth of a child
  • A change in the employee’s activity rate
  • An “out-of-cycle” pay raise (i.e. one that is independent from the annual salary increase)

C. Record of entry / exit: When employees leave the company, it is important to settle their account and to indicate the date of exit, so that their “history” will stop at the end of the working period and that no salary will be paid after the date of departure. Note that deadlines for the transmission of this data to the pension fund are often set – for example, until the 5th day of the month – in order to ensure the accuracy of the database. Note that the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) applies to each of these documents, so they need to be stored in a way that will ensure their confidentiality (i.e. locked in a room and/or a folder-shelf).

TREATMENT OF FAMILY ALLOWANCES

In Switzerland, the allocations vary depending on the canton. The Federal Law on family allowances (FamZG) sets the following minima, regardless of the canton of residence:

  1. family allowance of at least CHF 200.- for children up to the age of 16
  2. An education allowance of at least CHF 250.- for 16 – 25 year-olds who are still in education (a school certificate is required)

It should be noted that it is not up to the employer to decide on the right to the allowance; it is the compensation fund that the company is affiliated to. Thus, it is up to each eligible employee to fill in an allocation request based on the family register.

Moreover, upon the birth of a child, employees are entitled to a birth allowanceit will however be necessary for them to send an official request form, together with a copy of the family register, in order to actually receive it. Finally, some pension funds also offer household benefits allowances.