In 2020 we began providing payroll and HR administration services to a company offering biomedical solutions for healthcare. In 2022 the company registered for military records with our help, and we began maintaining them on an ongoing basis.
The difficulty of the project was that the client set extremely tight deadlines for preparing for military registration: just 3 months. For a company with more than 1,800 employees in total, that is an ambitious task. But we met the deadline thanks to the coordinated work of two teams: HR specialists and military registration specialists.
In this case study we describe how we handled the tasks and how the inspections by the Moscow military commissariat went.
1,800 employees, 900 liable for military serviceSpecifics:
Military registration always starts with registering the company for military records. As a rule, clients come to us for both services at once, and that was the case here. We started by updating the employees' military registration documents.
Update employee data in a timely manner.The military registration specialist verifies personal data and military registration document data during the annual reconciliation, which must be carried out at least once a year. Our client combined the process with the annual scheduled data update carried out in April.
Anna Vorontsova, lead specialist in HR processes:
“A military registration specialist must have a good understanding of the specifics of military registration documents. For example, employees of conscription age (raised to 30 from 2024) receive a certificate of a person subject to conscription, commonly known as a registration certificate. It is necessary to check the validity of deferrals from compulsory service on study grounds.
The company employs people who are still studying at university on bachelor's or specialist programmes or are entering master's or postgraduate programmes. Every year in September we request a certificate from the educational institution from such employees; the employee must provide it to the military registration office and the employer.
But that is not all: the registration certificate of conscripts entitled to a study deferral must state the grounds for the deferral. We check the information to track in good time whose right to a deferral has expired: they finished their studies, were expelled from the educational institution or received a non-conscript category for health reasons. We send the employee to the military registration office so that the documents are amended in time.”
Send information about hiring and dismissal to the military registration offices where employees are or should be registered.. This information is the first thing the military registration office is interested in: during inspections it scrupulously compares the dates on postal inventories and receipts with the dates of hiring or dismissal.
Because our client has a fairly large number of HR events every day, the volume of military registration documents is substantial. The deadlines for sending information about hiring or dismissal are strict: 5 calendar days from the date of the HR event, with no exception for weekends and public holidays.
Anna Vorontsova, lead specialist in HR processes:
“At the start of the engagement we warned the client that the failure to send information before the company was registered for military records would certainly be taken into account by the military registration office at the first inspection. That is exactly what happened: the client received a finding, and to remedy it we had to compile lists of all employees hired in the last 3 years (the so-called limitation period) who still work at the company. Here we needed the help of the client's 1C programmers, who are real professionals.
Later the military registration office strongly recommended that the client compile and send similar lists, but without being tied to the hiring date. We fulfilled that recommendation as well.
An important nuance: the company employs people with medical education (higher and secondary vocational). This means that employees who are women with military registration specialties can also be liable for military service.
We found that women who studied pharmacy, as a rule, had no military registration documents, including those who studied at military departments. The number of such employees was impressive. We took on another challenge: the employees were sent to the military registration offices to obtain military IDs. The exception was those who had already reached the age limit for the reserve (45 for other ranks and 50 for officers).”
Notify the military registration office of changes.For example, about transferring employees to another position or another department. And about changes in personal data: residential or temporary address, marital status, education, health status (for example, being assigned a disability group).
Carry out annual reconciliations with the military registration offices.As a rule, every November companies must reconcile the data of employees liable for military service with the military registration offices where employees are or should be registered. In our case the reconciliation deadlines before the second inspection in September 2024 were moved to August.
Maintain paper military registration documentation at the client's office. This includes folders with regulatory documents, working folders with military registration documentation, military registration registers and a card index with military registration cards. After the first inspection the military registration office recommended creating a file list for military registration, and we met that requirement before the second inspection.
The client's specifics imply substantial paper document flow. A service is involved through which documents are sent by courier and by Russian Post. Importantly, all information must be sent to the military registration offices by Russian Post. The provider's tasks are to prepare documents for sending to the military registration offices and to employees in good time and to create requests for sending documents.
Prepare documents for annual submission to the supervising military registration office.Before 2024 the first step was a visit to the Uprava at the company's registered address: there we agreed the documents and then went to the military registration office.
Support and take part in inspections.Companies with more than 500 people liable for military service are inspected annually; the rest every 3 years. Accordingly, our client is inspected annually.
In 2024 the company introduced a new operating model. As a result, employees changed positions en masse. This affected military registration, because the military registration office had to be notified of the HR operations.
Natalia Dolgopolova, project manager:
“At the start of 2024 we learned that positions were about to change in two divisions of the concern. That meant around 500 people would be transferred to other positions at once. We had to prepare and issue a huge volume of documents and reports for the military registration office and the employees: sign documents with the employer and employees on both sides, send them to the military registration offices and create a huge number of requests for the mail room. That is a serious workload for the specialists.”
The result: two successfully passed inspections
Inspections of the client's military registration took place in August 2023 and September 2024. The military registration office does not announce the exact inspection date in advance, so you have to be ready for any development. That is what happened in 2024: the military registration office said the inspection would come in September. We learned it would be at the start of the month almost just before the inspection. But we were prepared: we had successfully registered and were maintaining the records.
Natalia Dolgopolova, project manager:
“We were inspected on all fronts: past periods, current periods and the card index. It was a complex and active process. On top of that, in 2024 the military registration inspection coincided with an SFR audit and the annual reconciliations with the military registration offices, which had to be completed before the next inspection scheduled for September 2024. So several activities fell within a fairly short period, and everything had to be prepared and reported on time. A very serious workload fell on our military registration and HR administration specialists.
Nevertheless we coped with everything thanks to the professionalism and proactive approach of our colleagues.”
