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What is an employee document manager used for?
Having an employee document manager is critical for good information management in HR. More details on the blog!
Isabel García
HR Consultant
14 of April, 2025
Incorporating and maintaining a worker involves generating a large amount of documents to issue, sort, and store. This is compounded by the tedious task of retrieving them at a particular time. To avoid this situation, many companies opt for using an employee document manager.
In fact, a document manager is not only useful for organizing information related to the company’s staff, but it can also be used for any transition that involves documents.
What is an employee document manager?
An employee document manager is a software designed to manage information related to a company’s workers. It provides a centralized and secure employee database for storing, managing, and retrieving such documents.
The numerous functions it offers make it an essential tool in any kind of company.
What is an employee document manager used for?
Its main function is to facilitate administration, organization, and access to information in a secure manner. In the case of employee document managers, it will focus on the material related to the staff of a corporation.
These usually involve documents such as:
- Employment contracts.
- Performance assessments.
- Tax forms.
- Vacation requests.
- Certificate of completion.
Types of business document management
There are many ways to classify business document management. Each company has to research all the possibilities it has and choose the one that best suits its context.
An effective way to group them is by their organization and by the continuity of information use. These in turn are subdivided into other groups.
Organization
If we classify them by their organization, we will find three types of employee document management. We explain them below.
Centralized
The centralized archives are stored in a single repository. In this way, all users and departments access and manage information from the same place. In the case of an employee document manager, they are stored in the cloud and can be consulted from different devices over the internet.
The administration is more uniform, although a heavy reliance on a single infrastructure is an issue when there are technical problems.
Decentralized
In a system of decentralized files, the information is dispersed in different parts of the company. In this case, each department or worker would have their own repository, whether physical or online.
This method provides more autonomy and flexibility to each small group within a larger organization. It is useful so that each can manage information according to their specific needs.
However, it hinders collaboration between departments, and duplication of content or lack of access to relevant human resources documents can easily occur.
Mixed
As its name indicates, a mixed system combines the two previous types of storage. Some information will be archived centrally so all staff have access to it. Another, will be saved in a specific location, accessible to a smaller group of employees.
It is usually used to take advantage of the benefits of both approaches. Thus, for example, documents where the rules that all staff must comply with, will be centralized. Each team will manage specific projects in a decentralized manner.
Use of information
Regarding using the information, we can classify types of employee document management into 3 other categories, explained below.
Active
Active documents are those frequently used and necessary for daily activities. Therefore, employees can retrieve them quickly.
The employee document manager facilitates access to information such as current contracts, updated financial reports or customer records.
Semi-active
A semi-active document refers to information that is not habitually used, but there might still be a requirement to have it nearby for legal, historical, regulatory reasons, etc. They are less accessible because they are stored long-term.
Mixed
This is a combination of both types of archiving, and a hierarchy in its organization is established. This is based on document relevance and usage frequency. It aims to optimize access to this information.
The method of business document management is at the discretion of management and the HR department. If you find yourself in this dilemma, remember that you have to organize it according to the structure and format that best suits the way your company works.
Advantages and disadvantages of not having good document management
Having poor document management in your company is not advisable. The only benefit is not financing this tool and, therefore, not doing the initial classification work.
On the other hand, several benefits are associated with using an employee document manager, or any area of the company.
- Effective organization. Allows you to store reports in an organized way, facilitating their location and accessibility.
- Quick and secure recovery. The information about employees will be available to the HR department, or to other authorized members. Employee document managers have security measures to protect this.
- Decreased risk of analog storage. An employee document manager eliminates the need to work with physical documents, avoiding loss of information.
- Ease of collaborative administration. An employee document manager allows any worker to modify information from their device.
- Management of different versions. Usually, have the option to view any version and update files if necessary.
- Time saving. Both the ease of information retrieval and automation of tasks, as well as quick document modification, save work time.
- Compliance with regulations. Employee documentation must be in the database for a specific period. It may be required in audits or inspections. A personal document manager simplifies this task.
- Automation and task management. These software can remind you of the expiration of a contract, automatically generate reports or approve documents.
In conclusion, having a employee document manager in your company will improve storage, management and retrieval of information. Opt for a HR software like Sesame HR to optimize the work of professionals in your company.
Need help?
I'm Marcos López, HR consultant at Sesame HR. Book a meeting with my team to help you.