Business corporations and owners use personnel recordsto document workers’ relationships with their companies. These records, which may be stored as electronic folders or paper documents, may include confidential or general information about individual employees. They hold details concerning the relationship between individual employees and their organization. This accumulated data helps to review or formulate a firm’s personnel procedures and policies. They are regularly updated to facilitate operational efficiency. These personnel files typically contain facts such as the individual employee’s name, academic qualifications, previous employment details, marital status, performance appraisals, counseling experiences at work, progress reports, and compensation data according to state labor laws. They are maintained by a business establishment’s human resources department.
The Significance of Personnel Records
Both state and federal regulations require business owners and organizations to keep records concerning every worker’s job-related experiences. Some personnel records, such as payroll forms, should contain government compliance documents like 1-9 forms that confirm employee eligibility. There are federal regulations that mandate that employers maintain certain recordkeeping requirements. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC), created through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, stipulates that employers maintain employment records for each of their workers for at least 12 months. The Fair Labor Standards Act(FLSA), which dictates youth employment and minimum wage standards, requires employers to maintain payroll files for three years. These documents can be used to provide evidence concerning a corporation’s seniority and merit systems, pay scales, and collective bargaining agreements. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act(ADEA) stipulates that employers should keep records concerning the merit system and employee benefit plans for four years. There are several reasons why business organizations should maintain personnel records. These include:
Supplying Important Data: Managers often require important data about individual employees. Such information may include employee performance and records of leaves taken. Personnel records enable them to access this data.
- Framing Development Programs:When creating training programs, managers require updated records of employee turnover, leaves, and transfers. Personnel files enable them to access this information based on the present scenario.
- Evaluating Benefits:Personnel records enable employers to consult individual worker’s performance before making revisions related to allowances, wages, and other benefits. Managers also consult personnel files before making decisions about releasing workers who do not meet corporate objectives.
- Assist in Employing the Right Personnel: Personnel files enable business owners to make employment decisions based on professional abilities, age, and gender as they give clear facts about employees who perform best in the organization.
- Workers’ Disciplinary History: In the event of employment litigation following a dispute or termination, employers can use personnel files to display the affected worker’s disciplinary history, productivity levels, attendance, and realization of performance objectives.
Personnel records are confidential, and cannot be viewed by random citizens. Moreover, individual workers in some states have the right to ask to see their personnel files. In such cases, employers are expected to notify their workers of any adverse information included in their personnel files.
Common Types of Personnel Records
Personnel files are important because they track an employee’s work history in different corporations. Business establishments keep different types of personnel records. These include:
- Personnel Information Files:These records contain basic information about individual workers. That data includes professional experience, date of birth, academic qualifications, nationality, religious affiliation, credit reports, gender, ethnic background, permanent address, age, social security numbers, marital status,criminal records, and passport number. Amassing this data helps organizations to learn more about their workers’ demographic profiles. They can use that information to improve their employees’ work experience. Business establishments also collect basic information like their employees’ work email addresses, contact numbers, physical addresses, and emergency contact numbers. These details enable organizations to use emergency contact details in the event of adverse workplace incidents.
- Personnel Files detailing Pre-hiring and Hiring Activities: These records contain details about an organization’s hiring and recruiting processes. These details may include academic transcripts, interview notes, bank account details, job offer letters, job descriptions and applications, letters of recommendation, and resumes. These personnel files may also contain rejection letters, internal job transfers, and demotion and promotion letters. Organizations may require this data to evaluate workers’ capacities before assigning them to new projects. Additionally, employers can use this data to learn more about their employees’ work-related performance or attrition rate. State regulations require employers to record their workers’ referral details from previous supervisors, the date of joining the company, and previous work experiences.
- Personnel Files Describing Employer-related Agreements:These files contain details such as relocation agreements, non-disclosure agreements, employment agreements, non-solicitation agreements, union contracts, confidentiality agreements, policy acknowledgments, and non-competition contracts. Written records of these signed acknowledgments indicate that the worker understands and accepts all workplace policies detailed in the employee handbook. If disputes arise concerning factors like social media usage in the workplace, employers can remind workers of policy acknowledgment clauses under employer-related agreements.
- The Organization’s Onboarding Personnel File:These files retain information concerning the progress of the onboarding process. They include details about contractual relationships, the worker’s start date, the worker’s responsibilities, the supervisor the employee will work under, and a signed meal break form. These files help defend employers or business organizations from potential claims made by discontented workers.
- Payroll Records:These files contain sensitive information concerning employee salaries. Keeping payroll records enables workers to give valid reasons for employee-related decisions when necessary. These files includeW-4 form data that informsorganizations about how much money to extract from workers’ paychecks and pay taxes. Employers may also consult payroll records when court orders compel them to divert a portion of a worker’s paycheck to pay for debts.Payroll recordsalso contain information about time-off requests made by a worker. That enables a company to keep accurate records of time-off request accruals to calculate the right amount of payment. Payroll files contain workers’ bank checking accounts and routing numbers. That is why most organizations stipulate that these records only be accessed by human resource personnel. Apart from preventing wage theft incidences, this practice prevents discontent in the labor force, which could arise if workers view their co-workers’ wages or salaries.
- Performance Records:These personnel files include formal assessments, performance reviews, attendance records, training records, awards and certificates, employee development plans, disciplinary notices, demotion and promotion records, competency assessments, formal complaints from co-workers, and employee feedback from supervisors. Employers consult these files before making decisions to increase benefits or promote or demote different employees.
- Employee Medical Files: Federal laws stipulate that medical records may not be viewed by any workers other than those affiliated with an organization’s human resources department. Employee medical files usually contain employees’ health insurance forms, requests for unpaid or paid medical leave of absence, designated beneficiary details, and life insurance forms. These medical records may also contain Family Medical and Leave Act(FMLA) paperwork, medically-related reasons for absenteeism, accident, and injury OSHA-related reports, physician’s examination notes, drug test results, physician-informed job restrictions, and federally-mandated leave documents concerning adoption, the birth of a new child, military caregiving, or caring for a temporarily disabled spouse.
- Post-Employment and Termination Records: The law stipulates that if a worker hands in a notice or is dismissed, the employer must retain their personnel file for a year after termination. Employers must also record all data related to the worker’s dismissal. That protects organizations in case worker-initiated disputes arise. The documents included in post-termination records include the termination or resignation letter, exit interview forms, the document detailing reasons for firing the worker, unemployment compensation forms, a document showing the return of any of the organization’s property that the worker used daily, a copy of the worker’s final paycheck, a document showing vacation pay, and the worker’s final performance appraisal records.
Personnel files benefit both workers and employers. Data stored in personnel files like payroll records, employee medical files, and performance review records can be used to verify employees’ work-related skills while protecting employers when disputes arise. When disputes arise, employers can use personnel files that show a worker’s learning experience and skill-development activities to provide evidence of their organization’s competent training activities. Maintaining such records also enables a business organization’s supervisors to track which workers have received specific training courses and which employees are yet to be trained. That improves job performance, which will facilitate the realization of corporate objectives. Such records prove that a company has fulfilled state regulations by ensuring all workers have an equal opportunity to thrive in various job roles. Employers also keep personnel files that show the achievements of various workers and rewards given for these accomplishments. That increases job satisfaction and employee interest in improving their work-related skills. Human resource personnel could also use this accumulated data to chart the performance-related progress of individual employees and determine the best profile for candidates required for specific work projects. Employers also use personnel files to make decisions concerning terminations, raises, and promotions. These files help employers comply with state and federal mandates about keeping records of employees’ job history, educational skills, and training experience