Personal information

Ten minutes, one review

Mariam Saleh: Your profile says 'pending review'. Ten minutes, and it won't.

Layla Haddad: What's missing?

Mariam Saleh: Where you were born, what kind of contract you're on, your languages — and your family's address in Beirut.

Lina: Layla's second Wednesday. The personal tab is where HR and the employee meet.

Lina: Personal information: what the record works out for itself, what someone has to tell it, and where exactly she lives.

Your own five tiles

Lina: First, the strip of tiles above the tabs. Customise opens every tile this record can show.

Lina: Five are ticked: the five on the strip, numbered in the order they appear.

Lina: And one more below them — her hours this month, which appeared once she started checking in. It's greyed out, because five is the limit.

A swap

Lina: So Mariam makes room: she unticks the birthday,

Lina: and ticks hours instead. It takes the fifth place.

David: Does that change the strip for everyone?

Lina: Only for Mariam. It's saved to her own profile, so it follows her to every record she opens, on any device.

Hours, in front

David: Close the list, and the fifth tile is Layla's hours this month, with today's underneath.

Your tiles follow you

Lina: The choice isn't written on Layla's record.

Lina: It's saved once, to Mariam's own settings,

Lina: and every employee record she opens shows the same five tiles — on this laptop or any other.

David: And Layla's own view of her record?

Lina: Is hers to arrange. Everyone gets their own strip.

What it already knows

Lina: The personal information section opens with three chips nobody typed. Her age,

Lina: her tenure,

Lina: and her passport number, masked down to its last digits.

Lina: On the right, a completeness ring: five of the seven fields that matter are filled.

Lina: And above it, when the section was last changed, and by whom.

Worked out for you

Lina: Behind each chip is a field somebody did type. Her date of birth becomes her age,

Lina: her joining date becomes her tenure,

Lina: her passport number becomes a masked chip,

Lina: and seven key fields feed the ring.

David: So if someone corrects her date of birth?

Lina: Every chip that depends on it corrects itself — nobody retypes an age.

Two gaps

Lina: Most of it came from her application: her passport number,

Lina: her date of birth,

Lina: and her nationality.

Lina: Two gaps: where she was born,

Lina: and what kind of employee she is.

David: Why doesn't the application ask where she was born?

Lina: Because it isn't a hiring question. It's needed later — for a visa, a certificate, a pension — so HR asks once she's here.

Click, and type

Lina: There's no edit form. Mariam clicks the empty field and types.

The whole list

Lina: Employee type is a list the company keeps. Click the field, and the whole list opens.

Lina: Five types, all in view — no need to search.

David: And a company with twenty types?

Lina: Then a search box appears at the top. For a short list, it would only be in the way.

Changed, not saved

Lina: She picks full-time.

David: Both fields now carry a small dot: changed, but not saved yet.

Seven of seven

Lina: Save, and both values are on the record,

Lina: and the ring closes: seven of seven.

Current, and the rest

Lina: Open the field again, and the current choice sits at the top with a tick,

Lina: and the other four below it, for the day her contract changes.

Languages

Lina: Next, languages — and for a customer success lead in Dubai, they're part of the job. Right now the card is empty.

One click each

David: Edit, and the common languages are offered as chips, one click each.

With a level

Lina: Arabic, English and French — each with a level: native, fluent, conversational.

David: Does anything use those levels?

Lina: Skills do, in chapter five. A native Arabic speaker is someone you can route an Arabic escalation to.

On the record

Lina: Done, and they sit beside the onboarding meter.

Lina: Which still shows one step open — her probation, which only time can close.

Interests

Lina: And interests, in her own words — the kind of thing a new team uses to start a conversation.

David: Does HR actually need those?

Lina: Nobody needs them. They're there for the people she'll work with.

One person, three places

Lina: Now the addresses. There are three, because an international hire usually has more than one.

Lina: Where she lives now,

Lina: the permanent address official papers ask for — often back home,

Lina: and a private address for confidential letters.

Lina: Each one keeps its own point on the map, and its own distance from her office.

Current residence

Lina: Her current residence came with her application: street and city,

Lina: and the country she lives in — which, for Layla, isn't the country on her passport.

David: Two different countries on one record.

Lina: Nationality decides her permits; residence decides where the post goes.

Lina: Underneath, the exact point: latitude, longitude, and the distance to her office. All still empty — the map is only a guess from the street name.

Lina: Locate pins it down.

Pinned

Lina: One click: the address is looked up on OpenStreetMap, and latitude and longitude are filled in.

Lina: The map now centres on the exact point,

Lina: and the distance to her office is worked out.

David: Which office? Northwind has five.

Lina: The one on her record — the Dubai hub. Every office keeps its own point, so the distance is measured from where she actually works.

David: And who uses that number?

Lina: Commute allowances, travel claims, anyone planning cover on a bad-traffic day. It's only as good as the point, which is why the point is stored.

A guess, and a point

Lina: One click, and this is what it changed.

Lina: Latitude and longitude were empty; now they're filled in.

Lina: The map was a guess from the street name; now it's centred on the point.

Lina: And the distance went from nothing to sixteen and a half kilometres.

Lina: Measured to the Dubai hub, because that's the office on her record.

David: So no point, no distance.

Lina: A distance needs two real points: hers, and her office's.

Permanent address

Lina: Her family's address in Beirut came in by email and went into the permanent block. The map finds the street, but the point is still empty.

Located

Lina: Locate again, and Beirut has its own point.

David: And its own distance to the Dubai hub — the figure her annual ticket home is booked against.

Private address

Lina: The private address is empty.

David: Why keep a private address apart from where she lives?

Lina: For letters that shouldn't be opened by anyone else in the flat.

Lina: For most people it's simply where they live, so there's a button for that.

Copied, point and all

Lina: Same as current: the private block takes the Dubai flat — street, country and the point with it.

Lina: Its map shows home and office together.

David: With the distance between them, and a link for directions.

Three places, two distances

Lina: On a map, the three addresses are two points.

Lina: Her flat, a short drive from the hub — the current and the private address share it,

Lina: and her family's home in Beirut, measured from the same office.

David: Why from her office, and not from head office in London?

Lina: Because that's where she goes every morning. London would say nothing about her commute.

What the review closed

Lina: So what did those ten minutes change? Count it up, line by line.

Lina: Her profile went from five of the seven fields that matter to all seven.

David: Languages, from none to three.

Lina: All three addresses now carry a point of their own.

Lina: And onboarding stays at four steps of five.

David: Because the fifth is her probation.

Lina: And that one closes in July, not at a keyboard.

Who she is, on the record

David: A lot of personal detail for an HR system.

Lina: Every piece has a use. Her languages decide who takes an Arabic escalation; her address, how far she travels.

Lina: Some of it HR checks against a document — that's why Layla can't simply change her date of birth.

Lina: And some of it the record works out by itself, so nobody types it twice.

David: Fill it once, use it everywhere.

Reviewed

Layla Haddad: That's it?

Mariam Saleh: That's it. Your profile's complete. The rest of your record fills in as you work — starting with where you sit.

Lina: Next: work information — where Layla sits, and who approves what.