New possibilities for electronic signing are also expanding with the amendment to the Labor Code. An employment contract can now be signed electronically with a future employee even before they start work. The applicant does not need their own certificate or access to the organization's internal systems. A mobile phone, email, and optionally verification via Bank iD are sufficient. The signed document can then automatically enter the employee's digital personal file and link to further onboarding steps.
The Regional Office of the South Bohemian Region is currently digitalizing the entire lifecycle of HR documents. Documents no longer have to be created only in Word or in the personnel system, printed, physically circulated around the office, and end up in paper personal files. The office processes them in a digital workflow from creation through approval, signature, and delivery to archiving and linking to the document management service.
“Digitalization of HR documents has helped us eliminate unnecessary manual steps and significantly speed up their processing. What previously meant paper circulating across the office now happens digitally in an instant,” says Lukáš Glaser, Director of the Regional Office of the South Bohemian Region.
Digitalization of HR has specific demands in public administration. Offices work with various types of labor law documents, organizational structure, representation of managers, multiple employment relationships for one person, and legal requirements for delivery and archiving. Therefore, it is not enough to simply convert a document into electronic form. The key is to set up the entire process so that it is clear who prepares the document, who approves it, who signs it, how it is delivered to the employee, and where it is subsequently stored.
Before implementation, the South Bohemian Region had 15 described HR processes. After technical analysis, they converted them into eight process variants, differing in how documents were processed, approved, signed, delivered, and archived. 468 employees of the regional office are involved in the digitized processes, and approximately 95 percent of them agreed to electronic communication. The practical impact was shown, for example, in the processing of salary statements: the office managed to process 450 of them in three days during a stress test.
The result was evident in the fact that documents were generated from data in the personnel system, went through approval, the director's signature, and delivery to employees, while HR specialists could continuously monitor the status of each document.
“Employees adapted to the new system relatively quickly. The system is intuitive for users and also equipped with a number of notifications that facilitate its daily use,” states Eva Lachoutová, Head of the Personnel Affairs and Education Department of the Regional Office of the South Bohemian Region.
The digital workflow for the South Bohemian Region was prepared by Software602, a company focusing on document digitalization, electronic signatures, and trusted archiving. The solution is based on the Sofa application and the DocuFly tool. It also connects with systems already used by the office, including the FLUXPAM personnel system, Microsoft Entra ID authentication service, and the GINIS document management system. Documents thus receive a file number upon entering the process and, once completed, are stored not only in the HR archive but also in the document management system, linked to the specific employee file.
It is also important that digitalization accounts for different employee situations. If an employee agrees to electronic communication, documents can be received electronically. If consent is not given, the system creates a task for the HR specialist to perform an authorized conversion of the document into paper form. After a physical signature, the document is converted back into electronic form and remains part of the digital records.
The example of the South Bohemian Region shows a broader change in how authorities can approach internal administration. Public administration digitalization is often primarily associated with services for citizens. However, internal processes within offices, which affect the daily work of employees, HR specialists, managers, and organizational leadership, are equally important. The fact that approximately 95 percent of employees agreed to electronic communication and the office managed to process 450 salary statements in three days shows that HR digitalization can work in public administration even for agendas that have long been tied to paper.