Individual certificates through electronic
process at Axel Springer SE

With the text modules, nothing stands in the way of creating an employment reference at the touch of a button. In prac­tice, it works like this: Any disciplinary manager can initiate the creation of an interim reference for an employee under his or her supervision in the Manager Self-Service area of the SAP human resources portal. The triggering moment for this is usually the respective request on the part of the employee. HR administrators do this in the same way, although not via the HR portal, but via the Business Work­place of the SAP backend system. Unlike the manager, they are able to initiate processes for all employees and initiate final employment references – which are usually triggered when an employee leaves the company.

In the first step of the workflow, it is necessary to decide whether the employment reference will be in English or German. The master data of the employee is transferred from SAP HCM, depending on the category of employee (temporary employee, salaried employee, editorial employee, etc.). The system then automatically proposes a manager for the recipient of the employment reference according to the Organizational Management System, which completes the assessment and ultimately signs the employ­ment reference.

The initiator writes an formulates the initial text. This con­sists of an introduction of the company and the record of the employee in the organization. Pre-defined text modules are then inserted, although these can still be edited at any time; the manager then saves and/or completes the description of tasks and completes the assessment for the eleven areas of assessment with the appropriate grade, selecting the appropriate module from the six different text modules.

Once this is complete, the manager can generate a preview of the employment reference, before triggering the next pro­cess step by „sending“ it. A technical check is then carried out to see whether the employee is still actively employed at the company. If s/he is no longer there, the process goes directly to the human resources service without the involvement of the employee.

If the employee is still actively employed, they will receive a message via Outlook with a link to the human resources portal, where they can view the employment reference. Through the link, s/he can amend his or her tasks, view his or her assessment and insert requests for changes in the form of comments. These are then returned to the manager.

As soon as the employee confirms his or her employment reference, the process is forwarded to the human resources department for fine-tuning and any necessary changes. The electronic workflow reminds the staff members of delays to the compilation of the reference: If an employ­ment reference has been in processing for more than seven days, the responsible person will receive an automatic reminder. “The EASY software means we always have an overview of the employment references that are currently being processed and their status,” explains Danijela Böttger. The HR department reserves the right to revise the layout of the employment references subsequent to the appraisal process by the manager. This way, it ensures the fine tuning of the selected text modules, and also subsequently incorporate older interim references.

After the fine tuning, the HR manager gives the employment reference to the manager and the responsible HR business partner for signing, who acts as an interface between the department and the service areas of the HR department. At this point, the only media break during the whole procedure takes place, as the employment reference has to be signed by hand. Upon being signed, the employment reference workflow is completed and the employee receives their employment reference. Only a PDF of the employment reference which is issued remains in the electronic human resources file.

The digital signature, to eliminate the final media break, is certain to be implemented in the near future. With EASY SOFTWARE, the Axel Springer Group has managed to omit the time when employees were required to wait a long time for their employment references.