Electronic employment contracts and going paperless: digital signatures, ESUTD and a step-by-step plan

What is an electronic employment contract

An electronic employment contract is the same employment contract with the same mandatory terms: place of work, job duties, working hours, pay, duration. Only the form changes: the document exists electronically, and the parties sign it with a digital signature instead of a pen.

This format is explicitly allowed: an employment contract, along with any amendments and addenda to it, may be executed as an electronic document certified by a digital signature (Art. 33 of the Labour Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan). The document gets its legal force from a signature issued by the National Certification Authority (NCA RK) or another accredited centre: a document with a valid digital signature is equivalent to a paper one signed by hand.

What this means in practice: a warehouse operative in Karaganda signs the contract from their phone on the day they are hired, without travelling to head office in Astana. HR does not print two copies, chase the director for a signature or later hunt for the folder where the original ended up.

How an employee signs a contract with a digital signature

• From a computer — a digital signature key stored as a file or on a token, plus the NCALayer app for signing in the browser.
• From a phone — through the mobile app that stores the digital signature, or through services that support signing via QR code.
• On the employer's side, the director or an authorised person signs with the company key. The power of attorney or order granting signing rights must be issued in advance.

A common problem: the new hire has no digital signature, or it has expired. Add a "get or renew your digital signature" step to your candidate instructions well before the start date — otherwise the person will spend their first day without a signed contract.

ESUTD: what the employer must report

The Unified Employment Contract Recording System (ESUTD) is a state database accessed through the enbek.kz employment platform or through an integration with your HR system. Employers must use it to report the conclusion and termination of employment contracts, any amendments and addenda, and childcare leave (Art. 23 of the Labour Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan). This data forms a person's electronic employment history.

The key point people mix up: ESUTD is not where the contract is signed. You can sign a contract on paper or in any e-HR system and then report it to ESUTD separately. And the other way round: if a contract is signed with a digital signature but never reaches the system, the employer has not met its obligation.

Events that typically need an ESUTD entry:

• signing an employment contract;
• changes to essential terms — position, salary, working hours (usually through an addendum);
• transfer to another position;
• termination of the contract.

A practical fix: assign an owner to every HR event and add a "reported to ESUTD" flag. In a retail chain with 15 stores across Almaty that hires and lets go 20–30 sales assistants a month, gaps pile up unnoticed without such a flag.

Which HR documents to move online

You cannot switch everything over in one day, and you do not need to. It is easier to group documents by how many there are and how standard they are.

Requests and acknowledgement sheets save the most time. Example: a call centre in Astana with 120 agents introduces a new bonus policy. On paper, HR spends a week collecting signatures shift by shift. Electronically, the policy goes out in a minute, and two days later only 8 people need a personal reminder.

If a government body or a bank asks for a paper original, print the electronic document with its digital signature stamp or sign a separate paper copy. A hybrid mode at the start is perfectly normal.

Step-by-step plan for going paperless

The order below works both for a 30-person company and for a holding with branches. You can compress the steps, but do not reorder them.

Step 1. Audit your documents

List all the HR documents you produce in a quarter: type, volume, who prepares them, who approves and who signs. Usually 5–7 document types make up most of the volume — start with those.

Step 2. Internal policy and employee consent

Set out the electronic document workflow in an internal policy: which documents are processed electronically, who has signing rights, how employees receive documents and where the archive is kept. Have employees sign that they have read the policy. Get their consent to exchange documents electronically — and keep a paper option for those without a digital signature or who decline.

Step 3. Templates

Rebuild your contract, addendum and order templates. Variables (full name, IIN, position, salary, date) should be filled in automatically, not typed by hand. A template is approved once — after that, HR only works with the variables.

Step 4. Approval routes

Define a route for each document type: who prepares it, who approves, who signs and in what order. Example for a leave order: employee request → manager approval → HR check → director's signature → notification to the employee. Keep the route to 3–4 participants, or the document will get stuck with someone who is on holiday.

Step 5. Archive and access rights

Decide where signed documents are stored, who can see personnel files and how long records are kept. The head of sales should see their team's requests, but not the employment contracts of the whole company. Check that the archive can be exported if you ever change systems.

Step 6. Pilot in one department

Run electronic HR document management in one department for a month. Collect questions, fine-tune templates and routes, then bring in everyone else. Paper documents created before the switch do not have to be digitised retroactively — the rule "everything new is electronic" is enough.

Common mistakes when going paperless

• Confusing signing with reporting. The contract is signed with a digital signature, but nothing has been reported to ESUTD. Keep a separate status for each event.
• No internal policy. Documents are signed electronically, but the procedure is not written down anywhere. In a dispute or an inspection, it is hard to prove the employee agreed to this format.
• Signing with someone else's key. The director hands their digital signature key to the accountant or HR "to save time". This is a direct risk: legally, the signature belongs to the key holder. Grant signing rights to an authorised person instead.
• A PDF in a messenger instead of an archive. The signed file was sent over WhatsApp and forgotten. A year later, no one can find it, and there is no log of who signed and when.
• Routes that are too long. Seven approvers for a leave request — and the employee goes on leave before the order is signed.
• No plan for employees without a digital signature. Seasonal staff, foreign nationals, older employees. They need a clear alternative path.

How to connect e-HR documents with time tracking and hiring

HR documents are the result of events in other processes. A leave order follows a leave request, and the request affects the timesheet. If leave is approved in the e-HR system but the timesheet shows the employee at work, payroll will catch the mismatch when calculating salaries.

So look at the whole chain: hiring → contract → hiring order → schedule and timesheet. We explain how to build a timesheet without manual reconciliation in our article on employee timesheets. If leave and sick days already live in the system calendar, the order and the timesheet entry match without double-checking.

Think through dismissals separately: resignation letter, order, final settlement, reporting the termination to ESUTD, revoking access. That is five actions by different people, and any of them is easy to lose without a shared route.

Where to start tomorrow

To see how templates, routes and digital signing work together, open the e-HR documents module page and book a demo — you can follow a document all the way from request to archive.