The majority of legislation generally recognizes the validity and probative value of documents that are natively electronic (i.e., created as electronic originals), subject to compliance requirements.
HR-related documents (e.g. employment contracts, letters of intent, etc.) in Austria can generally be created directly in electronic form, without need for a paper original. Note that while contracts generally do not require signatures to be valid due to the principle of freedom of forms (§ 883 Austria General Civil Code), if an electronic (or paper) document is not signed, it may be problematic to prove that it was actually agreed to by the employee in court and administrative proceedings.
Led by PeopleDoc’s Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, the HR Compliance Assist team relies on a network of internal and external compliance experts and lawyers, including the global law firm Morgan Lewis, to provide clients with best practices and recommendations on topics such as HR document retention, employee data privacy, and HR electronic records. HR Compliance Assist also provides local compliance monitoring and alert services in select countries where PeopleDoc’s customers have employees. HR Compliance Assist is a service exclusively available to PeopleDoc customers.
