People and HR records

One HR record per person.
Even the ones who left.

Documents, expiry dates, cost rates and logins. And a record of who changed what, and when.

Construction manager in a hard hat reviewing a tablet on site

In plain terms

HR record software holds the personnel file for each person a business employs or engages: their details, their documents, the dates those documents run out, and who is allowed to see any of it. In the trades it has to cope with people who are not employees at all.

People and HR records is Unibuild's personnel spine. Everyone who touches the business gets one record, whether they are on PAYE, trading through their own limited company, supplied by an agency, a guest, or a client contact with a portal login. Every other module points at that record, so a timesheet, a labour run cell and a signed certificate all lead back to the same person.

How personnel files usually work

The cabinet is locked. The key is in the top drawer of a desk.

Nobody can tell you from memory whose right to work is on file and whose is not.

Three spreadsheets

Phone numbers, trades and rates. They disagree, and one person understands the third.

None of them is right

The agency man at seven

Somebody photographed his card. It is now one of four thousand in a camera roll.

No record it was checked

HAVS assessments

Done, filed, forgotten. The renewal date lives on the form and nowhere else.

Overdue, uncounted

The leaver

Van collected, email disabled. Login still works eight months later.

Still in the dropdown

Somebody changed a rate

Or a role, or a set of permissions. There is no record of who.

An argument about memory

The site closure notice

Sent to a WhatsApp group of eleven. There are forty-three on the books.

Thirty-two did not hear

The underlying issue Nothing else can be trusted until there is one record per person Everything points at it

What the record holds

Six things a personnel file in a cabinet cannot do.

Documents that
carry their own date

Passport, driving licence, proof of address, new starter form, DBS, induction record, whatever your business actually keeps. Each one is a titled record with its files attached and an expiry date where the document has one.

A file-type icon, so a PDF and a photograph are told apart at a glance
More than one file on a single record where a document has sides
Held against the person, not in a folder somebody has to find
Which means the date is a field rather than a memory

Findable in seconds, not forty minutesLive

Six assessments
with a list each

Driving licence checks, health screenings, HAVS, DSE, skin and working at heights. A register rather than a pile of forms, each row carrying its expiry date and its own email distribution list.

A one-click reminder that writes itself to the right people
Overdue becomes a number rather than something you count by hand
Fifteen HAVS and fifteen skin assessments live on the system today
Formal training and certificates sit in their own matrix

The renewals nobody remembersLive

Agency workers
onboard themselves

Rather than the office typing him in, the worker registers on the app: his details, a PIN, his CSCS card number, the card's expiry date, and photographs of the front and the back. He cannot finish without both.

He cannot log in at all until somebody approves him
The approver sees all four photographs before deciding
Approval is stamped on the record and pushed to his phone
An agency man who becomes a regular is promoted in one action

A control, not a photo on a phoneLive

Leaving ends
the access

Deactivating somebody sets their status, stamps who did it and when, and revokes their mobile access tokens in the same operation. The app on their phone stops working there and then.

They come out of the active lists and the labour run dropdown
The record, the documents and the history all stay
Client contacts additionally lose their project assignments
Deactivating and deleting are deliberately different actions

Not just the email disabledLive

Cost rates with
an effective date

One or more hourly cost figures held against the person, each with the date it came into force. Job costing reads them, so labour is valued at the rate that applied on the day the hours were worked.

A rise in April does not change what February cost
Which is what makes a historic job margin worth quoting
Entered on the person, not in a costing spreadsheet
The same rates feed the timesheet and the job

Last year's margin stops movingLive

Who changed it,
and from where

Every insert and update on the personnel tables carries the acting user, the timestamp, the page, the IP address, the browser and the country the request came from.

Login history for web and phone in one searchable table
Successful logins, failed ones, logouts, and attempts by deactivated accounts
Each with the country it came from
So "who changed this" has an answer rather than an argument

Evidence, not recollectionLive

Ask what happens to the login when somebody leaves.

It is a fair question to put to any supplier, and the answer tells you whether their personnel record is a filing cabinet with a search box or an actual system.

Book a demo → 30 minutes. The demo runs on our own data.

Not everybody is an employee

Five kinds of person, one table underneath.

This is where generic HR software stops fitting construction. A firm running employed staff, limited-company operatives and agency labour has three different relationships to hold, and the paperwork is different for each.

Employed, on PAYE: The full record: trade skill, employee code, national insurance reference, next of kin, photograph, signature, PIN, cost rates and the whole document set.
Limited company operatives: The people who invoice you rather than being paid through the payroll. Same record, with UTR held alongside the national insurance reference, and their own list page so they are never mixed up with staff on screen.
Agency and temporary: Registered from the app by the worker himself, approved by somebody with authority before he can log in, and limited to timesheets until you decide otherwise. Promoted to a limited-company operative in one action if he becomes a regular.
Guests: People who need a login and nothing else. Their own list, their own field set, and no reason for them to appear anywhere a member of staff should.
Client contacts: Created on their own page, forced to the client type, tied to a client company and then tied to named live projects, so they can only ever see the jobs somebody deliberately ticked.

Driven off the same record

Six things that are not obviously HR.

They sit here because they all read from the person, and separating them would mean maintaining the same list of people twice.

Announcements to every active phone

A director writes it once. It is saved with the author and the timestamp and pushed to every active user on its own notification channel, then stays visible in the app. Not a group chat with eleven of your forty-three people in it.

The engineers a client is allowed to see

Staff worth showing can be flagged as visible to clients. A client logging into their portal then sees those people against their project, with role, trade, photograph and their training and e-learning records, expiry dates and certificates attached.

Client contacts tied to named jobs

A client user is tied to a client company and then to specific live projects, one at a time. There is no setting that shows them everything, so what they can see is always a list somebody deliberately built.

The record survives the person

Deactivation and deletion are separate on purpose. Deactivation keeps the record, the documents and the history for as long as your retention policy says, while ending the access. Deletion removes the personnel record. The retention decision stays yours.

Opening a record is itself controlled

Seeing somebody else's full record needs the administrator role or a specific personnel permission, and the personnel pages are individually grantable, so a supervisor can have the staff list without the HR records. Sensitive fields sit behind a further re-authentication step.

The fields are yours to shorten

Every field on the record maps to a stated operational purpose, and the field set is configurable per implementation. A business that does not need a field can have it removed rather than left empty on a form everybody learns to skip.

What setting somebody up looks like

A new starter, from nothing to working.

Ten minutes for a member of staff, and rather less for an agency worker, because he does most of it himself before he arrives.

The person is added to the right list

Name, nickname, email, phone, role, trade skill, employee code, national insurance and UTR references, CSCS card number, next of kin and a photograph. A password and a four-digit PIN are set at the same time, because the PIN is what he will actually use to clock in at the gate.

Their access is set, page by page

New staff start on a default web menu and a default app menu, which is then adjusted page by page rather than by picking a broad role and hoping. Thirty-four roles exist on the live system, which is what happens when access is granted for real jobs rather than for job titles.

Their cost rate is recorded with a date

One or more hourly cost figures, each with the date it takes effect. This is the step people skip and then regret, because it is what lets job costing value labour at the rate that applied on the day rather than at today's.

Documents go on the person

Passport, right to work evidence, proof of address, new starter form, bank details, DBS, induction record. Each is a titled record with its files and, where the document has one, an expiry date. It is worth deciding your standard set once at implementation rather than letting it grow by accident.

Recurring assessments are registered

Anything that expires and comes round again goes on the Staff HR register: the driving licence check, health screening, HAVS, DSE, skin and working at heights. Each row takes the expiry date and the people who should be told about it, and from then on it chases itself.

Bring the three spreadsheets. We will show you what one record looks like.

Unibuild carries out the migration from those files, and it is included in the fee.

Book a demo → Or call the office on UK hours

Questions

Asked by whoever
keeps the files.

What happens to somebody's access when they leave?

Deactivating them sets their status, records who did it and when, and ends their app access in the same step. The app on their phone stops working there and then, rather than at the next password change. They come out of the active lists and the labour run dropdown. The record, the documents and the history all stay, because deactivating and deleting are deliberately different actions.

Can it cope with people who are not employees?

Yes. Five list pages run off one record type: staff on PAYE, operatives trading through their own limited company, agency and temporary workers, guests, and client contacts with a portal login. Each carries the details its relationship needs, so a limited-company operative holds a UTR reference and a client contact carries no trade. An agency worker who becomes a regular moves to the limited-company footing in one action.

Can we prove who changed a rate or a permission?

Yes. Every change to a personnel record carries who made it, when, and where it was made from. Login history for the web and the phone sits in one searchable list, covering successful logins, failed attempts, logouts and attempts by deactivated accounts. It turns "who changed this" from an argument about memory into a lookup.

Who can see somebody's personnel record?

Opening another person's full record needs the administrator role or a specific personnel permission. The personnel pages are granted one at a time, so a supervisor can have the staff list without the HR records behind it. Sensitive details sit behind a further sign-in check. There are thirty-four roles on the live system, which is what access granted for real jobs rather than job titles looks like.

How does an agency worker get set up?

They do most of it themselves. They download your app and register as a temporary worker. They add their details, a PIN, their CSCS card number and expiry date, and photographs of both sides of the card. They cannot finish without both photographs. The app refuses their login until somebody approves them, and the approval is stamped on their record and pushed to their phone.

Does it track document expiry dates?

Yes, in two places for two jobs. Staff documents such as a passport, a driving licence or a DBS certificate are held against the person, with their files and an expiry date. The Staff HR register holds the recurring assessments: driving licence checks, health screenings, HAVS, DSE, skin and working at heights. Each has its expiry date, its own email list and a one-click reminder. Training and tickets, including IPAF and PASMA, sit in the training matrix.

Can a client see the training and certificates of our engineers on their job?

Yes, for the people you choose. Staff can be flagged as visible to clients, and a client signing into their portal then sees those people against their project. That includes role, trade, photograph, and their training and e-learning records with expiry dates and certificates. A client contact only ever sees the live projects somebody has deliberately assigned to them.

Can you bring our existing spreadsheets across?

Yes. Unibuild carries out the migration from your existing files, and it is included in the fee. Your standard document set is agreed once at implementation, so it does not grow by accident. Setting up a new member of staff after that takes about ten minutes, and rather less for an agency worker.

What about GDPR and how long we keep records?

The record is built to support your decisions rather than make them. Every field maps to a stated purpose, and the field set is configurable, so a field you do not need can be removed. Access to personal data is restricted by role and by page, and every change records who made it and when. Deactivation and deletion are separate, so a record is kept for as long as your policy requires and then removed. The lawful basis and the retention period stay the employer's decisions.

The platform