Pursuant to Art. 29 par. 3 points 5 of the Polish Labor Code, the employer is obliged to inform the employee in writing no later than within 7 days from the conclusion of the employment contract, inter alia, about the method of confirming attendance at work. The experience of our PRWT accounting office shows that this obligation is often confused by employers with the obligation to keep records of working time. Meanwhile, the records of working time are a more complex document (the attendance list is only an element of the records of working time). Below, we present some practical comments on employees’ attendance lists.
Polish Labor law provisions leave the method of confirming the presence of employees at work at the discretion of the employer. Usually, employers use traditional attendance lists.

What information should the attendance list contain?

If the attendance list is collective (it covers all employees who will have access to it), then the information on employees it contains should be limited to the necessary minimum. Apart from the necessary information, such as the name and surname of the employee, date and hours of work on a given day, the attendance list should not contain additional information. Such recommendations are in line with the provisions of Art. 5 sec. 1 lit. c of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46 / EC (General Data Protection Regulation ) (Journal of Laws UE.L No. 119, p. 1), (RODO) principle of minimizing the amount of collected personal data used to achieve a specific purpose. If only the employees signing the list and employees of the HR or reception department (depending on where the list is stored in the workplace) have access to the list, the confidentiality of the data contained in the list will not be violated. It is important to ensure the security of the obtained data by ensuring protection against loss, destruction or damage, in accordance with the general recommendations of the RODO in this regard.

It should also be remembered that the attendance list may under no circumstances indicate the reason for the possible absence of the employee (sick leave, maternity leave, rehabilitation allowance, etc.). The inclusion of data related to the cause of the employee’s absence could be considered a breach in the context of the provisions of the RODO, which treat health data as sensitive data, which, in principle, cannot be disclosed. Data on the reasons for absences are one of the components of the records of working time, but cannot be included in the attendance list.