Organization-Guide/Processes/05_HR.md

HR

Key Objective	Target	Achieved
Fill HR positions quickly and with qualified personnel	> 80% filled vacant positions during the year	YES
Keep HR costs reasonable	Stay within HR budget	YES
Employees are paid on time	99% of the monthly salaries/wages are paid before the 1st of every month	YES
Reasonably low tax mistakes	Stay below 5,000 EUR tax corrections per year (only checked during wage audit every 3-5 years)	YES
Regular performance review of employees	All employees receive a evaluation once a year	YES
Employees can communicate feedback to the company	All employees receive a company evaluation form once a year which they can anonymously submit	YES

Hiring

Search

Identify & Approval

Before searching for a new employee the current HR situation must be evaluated and the need for a hiring must be identified. The identification can happen during the budgeting process, regular department meetings, executive meetings or even during the ongoing business operations. The search must be approved by the head of HR, an executive staff member who is legally allowed to hire employees or the CEO (R1). Generally, employees may only get hired in case of:

• Replacement
• Budgeted new position
• Changes in the organization which requires not budgeted hiring

The approval for the employee search must be in writing and can be done the IT system or by using the Employee Search Form.

Employment ad

Every employment ad must be posted on the own website, internally through the Intranet, on the black board in the company location(s) and the agency for labor (Agentur für Arbeit) (R2). Additionally, employment ads may be placed on online job portals. The job portals can be chosen by the HR department, important criteria are the size of the job portal and the target group who visits these job portals. The contact address for applicants is the HR department.

The standard PDF layout maintained by the DHR for job postings can be found in the Job Posting Layout_**.docx file. Different language files are available (R3). Every job has a pre-defined job description by the DHR which must be used as a basis for the job posting. Manual adjustments are allowed. (R4)

Head hunter & HR search agency

The search with a search agency should be none exclusive and paid based on success. Searching with a head hunter should be the last option or primarily get used for the search of head of departments or managers. The search with a head hunter can be exclusive. As a basis for their search they must receive the job posting which is also published internally, additional information such as the preferred salary (not max salary) should be provided as well.. The contact for the head hunter and the search agency is the HR department.

Application

All applications must be reviewed by the HR department. The HR department may immediately exclude applications in case of salary requests above the maximum acceptable salary and applications of applicants which obviously don't match the job description (R5). Some deviations between the applicants haves and the job posting haves are acceptable (R6).

The applications must get anonymized (name, address, nationality, gender, image, etc.) by the HR department, possible salary figures must also get removed. The anonymized application is forwarded by the HR department to the responsible person for review (e.g. head of department, executive member, CEO, ...). (R7)

Rejection

In case of a application rejection the HR department should give a timely response to the applicant. The rejection text must be the Default Rejection text. (R8)

Interviews

Candidates selected by the responsible person (often the head of the department or executive staff member who initiated the hiring process) for interviews must be returned to the HR department with a remark "to be interviewed" or similar. Candidates who are deemed to be unfit must be returned to the HR department with a remark "to be rejected" or similar. No copies of the application must remain in the position of the responsible person (emails must be deleted). In general, a fast application review, following a timely response by the HR department for the applicant (rejection or interview appointment).

The HR department handles the applications according the remark by the responsible person. The HR department checks in the sanctions software the accepted applicant against sanctions and If an applicant is sanctioned in a way which doesn't allow or doesn't make an employment feasible the applicant must be rejected by the HR department. (R9).

The HR department must take notes during the interview process and also make sure that all necessary aspects for a potential contract are clarified (e.g. salary, vacation, job description, work conditions, ...). These notes must be forwarded to the person creating the contract.

The interview process is defined as follows:

Employee

Interview	Interview type	Participants / selection committee
First interview (only in case of external application)	Phone or online	Responsible person (or alternatively HR department)
Second interview	In person	Responsible person + one person from the HR department
Third interview	In person	Responsible person + one person from the HR department

Final decision if no majority vote can be found during the application selection: CEO.

Head of department / manager

Interview	Interview type	Participants / selection committee
First interview (only in case of external application)	TBD	Head hunter / HR search agency (no voting rights)
Second interview	Phone or online (unless internal application)	Responsible person + one person from the HR department
Third interview	In person	Responsible person + CEO/Executive staff member(s) + one person from the HR department

Final decision if no majority vote can be found during the application selection: CEO or the executive staff member if the CEO wasn't partaking.

Reference check

The HR department has to check the references of an applicant latest before the third interview. This includes checking some previous employment references if applicable. Certificates and educational credentials must only be checked if they seem illegitimate. (R10)

Applicant selection

The selection of a applicant should be done based on the following criteria:

• The applicant fits the job description sufficiently.
• The applicant fits into the team.
• The applicant had positive interviews / managed to present themselves with sufficient competence.
• The salary of the applicant is within budget / below the max. acceptable salary.
• The applicant fits other criteria which are not mentioned in the job description?
  • The applicant is assumed to stay for at least 4 years in the company.
  • The applicant will not exceed the max. acceptable salary within 4 years.
  • The applicant doesn't have a criminal record or sanctions which don't allow their employment.
  • The contents of the application are true and applicant references are positive.

It is advised to compare multiple applicants with each other to find the best fit. However, in some situations this may not be possible due to the job market situation or low amount of applicants.

Voting

The final decision if an applicant should get hired after meeting the above mentioned requirements is the responsibility of the selection committee. The selection committee makes this decision based on a majority vote where every member of the selection committee has equal voting rights (R11). Sometimes additional participants can be present during interview processes, they have no voting rights. If different HR employees partake in the interview processes only one HR employee has voting rights (usually the HR employee with the highest position).

The result of the voting process is logged in the notes of the HR employee and must be signed by all members of the selection committee.

Contract

The employment contract must be created by the HR department. The basis for the contract is the Sample Contract maintained by the DHR (R12), the job application, the Employee Search Form, conditions negotiated during the interview process. Before sending the contract to the applicant it must get approved by the DHR (R13). Additional documents which must be signed and provided by the applicant are the NDA, CLA, privacy policy, criminal record certificate, tax id.

The following aspects (see Hiring Checklist) must be considered and checked by the DHR before the contract can be signed by authorized persons in the organization:

• The applicant in the contract got selected by the selection committee (R14a)
• Application contains credentials (R14b)
• Credentials are successfully verified (random selection) (R14c)
• Contract is signed by applicant
• The signed contract is the approved version (unaltered) (R14d)
• Unaltered NDA is signed (R14e)
• Unaltered CLA is signed (R14f)
• Unaltered privicy policy is signed (R14g)
• Criminal record certificate is negative (R14h) and no sanctions which prevent hiring (R14i)
• Applicant tax id is available (R14j)
• Work permit is available (if necessary) (R14k)

The employment contract must only get signed by an authorized persons in the organization (e.g. CEO, executive staff member, authorized officers). The HR department only hands the contract over for signing to these authorized people. (R15)

Training plan

The training plan must be finalized before the employee starts their employment. The head of the department where the employee will start is responsible for creating the training plan. The basis for the training plan is the Sample Training Plan and the department specific tasks maintained by the DHR. (R16)

This training plan must get signed by the employee after completion in order to document the successful training. (R17)

Employee file

Documents from the hiring process attached in the employee file are:

• Employee Search Form
• Application
• Credentials
• Signed contract
• Signed NDA
• Signed CLA
• Signed privacy policy
• Signed interview notes by the selection committee
• Criminal record certificate
• No sanctions evidence
• Tax id
• Work permit (if available)
• Hiring Checklist
• Signed training plan

The HR department must ensure, that these documents are available.

Payroll

Evaluation

Employee evaluation

The employee evaluations goal is to allow a supervisor to provide a formalized performance and qualification review to the employee. This evaluation must take place annually ideally during October 1st to October 31st between the supervisor and the employee (R18). Every supervisor must perform these employee evaluations based on the Employee Evaluation Form which needs to be signed by the supervisor after its discussion with the employee.

The signed evaluation form must get handed over by the supervisor to the HR department who ensure that the employee also receives a copy (R19). The HR department also must keep track of all completed employee evaluations and remind supervisors to to finish their employee evaluations if they are not completed in time. (R20)

Self-Evaluation

Every employee must fill out the Self-Evaluation Form which the employee must sign and hand over to the supervisor during the employee evaluation. The purpose of the self-evaluation is to match the employees performance and qualification perception against the performance and qualification perceived by the supervisor (R21). Deviations between the self-evaluation and the evaluation by the supervisor must be discussed during the employee evaluation.

The self-evaluation must be handed over by the supervisor to the HR department after the employee evaluation.

Company evaluation

Every year every employee receives a Company Evaluation Form which they can fill out and anonymously submit to the HR department. These forms are evaluated and analyzed by the HR department to find improvements for the company. The results are shared and discussed in the executive committee meeting. (R22)

Regularly employee checks

Every employee is checked automatically every night against sanctions lists in the IT system (R23). In case of valid matches the export control officer must get contacted together with the CEO who evaluate the next steps.

Other related documents

• Onboarding Does and Donts

2022-01-01 - Version 1.0