An employee document management system is judged on four things, and a small employer should require all four before paying for any of the rest. It files every document against the person on capture, numbered and dated. It sets a retention date per document from the employer's policy and reports what may be destroyed. It logs who opened which file and when. And it exports one person's whole file on request, in order, with the numbers on the pages. A system that does those four and nothing else is worth more than a suite that does forty things and leaves the retention date to a folder name. The free document capture worksheet on this site sizes the intake; Batesio Pro does the four.
File per person on capture
The document lands in the person's file the day it is captured, against the matter, numbered and dated. Systems that hold a document library and a people directory side by side, joined by a tag someone must remember, are two systems.
Retention per document, reported
The contract and the payslip are kept for different lengths; the system sets the date on each and reports what is due for destruction. The worksheet prints the pages a retention period keeps at your intake, so the policy is written knowing what it holds.
Access logged, file exportable
Who opened the file, when, and the whole file exported in order on request: the two things a complaint or a subject access request asks for first. Dropbox, cited below, prices a Standard team plan at $15 per user per month; a drive holds the file and does neither of these without configuration nobody does.
Questions people ask about employee document management system
Does a small employer need a system rather than a drive?
At the first access request or the first document that should have been destroyed, yes. The four requirements above are what a drive lacks.
Can HR and the manager see different things?
They should: access per role, logged. Ask to see the log before buying.
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a