Most UK organisations already have the pieces of an HR portal in Microsoft 365: a SharePoint site with the staff handbook, a folder of contracts, a spreadsheet of holiday and a Teams channel where people ask HR questions. A SharePoint HR portal brings those together. The question to settle first is whether you want a place to publish HR information, or a system that keeps HR records and follows UK rules. The two are built differently.
This post covers what a UK HR portal should do, whether SharePoint can be used as an HR system, building it yourself against using an app, keeping data in your own tenant, and how it all works in Teams and Viva Connections.
Can SharePoint be used as an HR system?
SharePoint gives you the building blocks: pages for news and policies, lists for structured records, document libraries for contracts and letters, and permissions to control who sees what. On its own it does not know UK employment rules. It will not work out a holiday balance, tell you when Statutory Sick Pay applies or remind you that someone's permission to work runs out next month. So yes, SharePoint can hold an HR system, but either you build the HR logic yourself or you use an app that brings it.
What should a UK HR portal do?
Keep one record for each person
Start with a single employee record: worker type, contract terms, working pattern, start date, probation and notice. GOV.UK says employers must give employees and workers a written statement of employment particulars, with the principal statement on the first day of employment and the wider written statement within 2 months. It covers pay, hours, holiday entitlement and any probation period, and you must tell people about changes within one month of making them. The record should keep each change with its date, rather than overwriting the old value.
Work out leave
Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year, pro rata for part-time staff, with separate accrual rules for irregular-hours and part-year workers. Bank holidays differ between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. From 6 April 2026, GOV.UK's holiday pay guidance says employers must keep detailed records of annual leave and holiday pay for at least six years. A portal that only collects requests leaves HR to work out balances by hand.
Handle sickness and Statutory Sick Pay
GOV.UK's Statutory Sick Pay guide for employers sets out what the portal has to support:
- SSP is paid when the employee is sick for at least one full working day, for the days they normally work, for up to 28 weeks.
- The employee should tell you they are sick within the time limit you set, or 7 days if you have not set one. You cannot insist they tell you in person or on a special form.
- You can only ask for a fit note if the employee is off for more than 7 days in a row, including non-working days.
- You can choose how to keep sickness records, but HMRC may need to see them if there is a dispute over SSP.
- Statutory annual leave builds up while an employee is off sick, and you cannot force them to take annual leave when they are eligible for sick leave.
Health details need extra care. GOV.UK's guidance on data protection and staff records says to store sensitive information such as health records separately, and not to let managers see a worker's sickness record if they only need a simple record of absences.
Record right to work checks
You must check a job applicant's right to work before you employ them: online with their share code, from their original documents, or through an identity service provider. British and Irish citizens cannot get an online share code. Make copies that cannot be changed, record the date you made the check, and keep copies during employment and for two years after the person stops working for you. If their right to work is time-limited, you need to check again when it is due to expire. You could face a civil penalty if you employ an illegal worker without a correct check, so the portal needs the check type, the date, who checked and a reminder before permission ends.
Publish policies people actually read
Putting a handbook online is easy. Knowing who has read the version that applies to them is harder. A good portal keeps versions, targets each policy at the right people, chases mandatory reads and records an acknowledgement for each person and each version.
Report from the records
Leaders ask the same questions every month: headcount, starters and leavers, turnover, absence, and how much untaken holiday the business is carrying. When the records are structured, those reports come straight from the data rather than from a spreadsheet rebuilt each time. Payroll needs a clean export too.
Build it yourself or use an app?
You can build a lot with SharePoint pages, lists and Power Automate approvals, which approvers can answer from Outlook or an adaptive card in Microsoft Teams. The first build is rarely the hard part. Everything after it is.
| Question | If you build it | What to ask of an app |
|---|---|---|
| UK rules | You write and test holiday, SSP and right to work logic, and change it when the rules change | Which UK rules does it cover, including Northern Ireland? |
| Permissions | You design access for every list and item. Microsoft's SharePoint limits recommend a general limit of 5,000 unique permissions in one list or library | Who sees what: staff, managers, HR and payroll? |
| History | You decide how changes and approvals are kept | Are changes dated, and is each approval recorded? |
| Data | Stays wherever you put it | Where is the data stored, and what permissions does it ask for? |
| Upkeep | Depends on whoever built it staying | Who maintains it, and how do updates arrive? |
A sensible middle path for many organisations is to keep news, the handbook and HR contacts on SharePoint pages you manage yourself, and use an app for the records and the rules.
Keep HR data in your own tenant
HR data is some of the most sensitive information you hold. GOV.UK says staff data must be kept secure, only appropriate staff with the right training should see staff records, and information should be kept only for as long as you have a clear business need for it. Keeping HR records in your own Microsoft 365 tenant means they sit under the permissions, retention and admin controls you already run, rather than in another system with its own logins.
Apps built with the SharePoint Framework fit this well. Microsoft says Teams tabs and personal apps built with the SharePoint Framework are hosted for you in SharePoint, with no extra resources needed in Microsoft Azure, and a solution can be built once and used in both SharePoint and Teams.
Teams and Viva Connections
An HR portal is easier to find when it sits where people already work. Microsoft's SharePoint app in Teams, formerly Viva Connections, brings a SharePoint home site into Teams on desktop, tablet and mobile. It has a dashboard of interactive cards, a news reader and a resources list for things like important forms and department sites. Because it is built on SharePoint, your HR pages, lists and libraries can sit behind it, and content can be targeted to specific audiences, such as line managers or one office. Microsoft names the SharePoint Framework as the only way to extend it.
How HRPoint fits
If you are looking for HR software for Microsoft 365 in the UK, or an HR app for Microsoft Teams, HRPoint is ours. It covers the records and rules side of the portal:
- One employee record. Worker type, contract terms, working pattern, service, probation and notice, with every change dated so history is never overwritten.
- Holiday worked out. Days or hours, pro-rata, irregular hours, each nation's bank holidays and carry-over, with "Explain my balance" on every balance.
- Sickness and family leave. Absence notification, fit notes, return to work, day-one Statutory Sick Pay and family leave. A manager sees dates and the category, never a diagnosis.
- Right to work. Check records with type, date and checker, copies that cannot be edited, and follow-ups before time-limited permission ends.
- Policies people read. A policy library with versions and audiences, mandatory reads with reminders, and an acknowledgement kept for each person and version.
- Reports and payroll export. Absence rate, holiday liability, headcount, turnover, starters and leavers, plus payroll export files for your provider.
HRPoint's leave, sickness, Statutory Sick Pay and right to work follow UK law, with Northern Ireland's differences. It runs on SharePoint in your own tenant and in Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections, and keeps a decision record for every approval step. Staff use the Microsoft 365 account they already have, on a desk or a phone. Objectives, reviews, one-to-ones, learning and hiring with scorecards and offer letters run on the same record. Your HR data stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and HRPoint needs no extra permissions to start.
For the people side of the portal, DirectoryPoint is our employee directory for SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. Search forgives typos and knows nicknames, profiles bring Teams chat, call and email together with skills and an org chart, and site owners can see missing photos, managers and job titles so corrections go to IT. It works with no Microsoft Graph permission to start, and directory data stays in your tenant.
Where to start
- List the questions HR answers most often, and where the answer lives today.
- Decide which records must be structured: people, leave, sickness, right to work and policy reads.
- Agree who should see what, starting with health information.
- Choose what to build on SharePoint pages and what to run in an app.
- Put it in Teams, so staff find it without a new link to remember.
HRPoint has a 14-day trial of every feature that starts when set-up finishes, with no licence key and no form. To talk through your HR portal first, book a free 30-minute call with APPS 365.
