Personnel file documentation

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Different Guidelines for Personnel Files. Recommended Personnel Files. Employee Personnel File. Medical File. Payroll File. Please note, personnel files can be viewed during a government audit or subpoenaed in the event of a wrongful termination lawsuit. Maintaining accurate, up-to-date files will help you avoid liability. Follow our onboarding guide to learn how some of the personnel file documents will be used upon hire. Here are the best practices, as well as what is required, at the federal and state levels.

Federal labor laws apply to all employers covered by federal anti-discrimination laws, which is typically any employer with 15 or more full-time employees. However, the following laws apply to all businesses, and each agency has its own document retention requirements and guidelines.

You can find more on required documentation by reading our article on payroll compliance. State laws on personnel files revolve around whether or not an employee has a right to look at their personnel file.

Many states have a provision that allows employees to request copies of documents in their files. In other states, employees may have to file a lawsuit to see their personnel file. The following states allow employees to see some or all of the documents in their personnel folder; many states are quite specific about what exactly employees are allowed to view. Others allow the employer to charge reasonable fees for document copies.

For example, in Arizona, payroll records can only be viewed. Maintaining personnel files is an important part of being an employer and protecting yourself from liability. Find Charlette On LinkedIn. Charlette Beasley is a writer and editor at Fit Small Business focusing on payroll. With more than a decade of accounting and finance experience, Charlette has worked side-by-side with HR and accounting leaders to establish and help implement payroll best practices, controls, and systems. Her experience ranges among small, mid-sized, and large businesses in industries like banking and marketing to manufacturing and nonprofit.

Jennifer has over 20 years of writing and content experience, working with small businesses and Fortune companies. For over a decade, Jennifer worked as an HR Generalist, providing expertise in accounting, payroll, and HR by implementing payroll and benefits best practices and creating onboarding and employee-relations documentation.

Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Fit Small Business content and reviews are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More. Published December 17, Table of Contents. Visit Rippling Download our free checklists to help you understand what employment records to store; they can be edited to add documents specific to your company.

Federal Law State Laws Federal labor laws apply to all employers covered by federal anti-discrimination laws, which is typically any employer with 15 or more full-time employees. If an employee is fired, their personnel records must be retained for one year from the date of termination. The employee personnel file is the main employee file that contains the history of the employment relationship from the employment application through an exit interview and employment termination documentation.

In some companies, access to the file is restricted to the HR staff. In these organizations, supervisors or managers keep their own management file that includes documents they might need to access such as copies of prior performance appraisals.

The requirements vary from state to state, not to mention, internationally, about who has access to the employee's personnel file. In some states, employees have the right to access and even get copies of the information in the personnel file. In others, access is more narrow. The requirements also vary about what the employee can access. Know the rules in the jurisdiction in which you employ people to stay in compliance with your legal requirements.

Generally, you will not want to keep documents in the employee personnel file that the employee does not reasonably have the right to access. You may consider keeping all documents related to background checking, references, interview checklists, and ratings in a separate file that is created to house all of the documents related to a particular recruitment and hiring event.

The employee personnel file is generally stored in a locked, fire-proof file cabinet in a locked location that is accessible to the Human Resources staff. The confidentiality of the employee information in the personnel file is of paramount importance. Of all the company-kept employee files, the employee personnel file is most frequently accessed day-to-day for information by the employer, supervisor, or Human Resources staff.

Personnel files usually contain documents that the employee has already reviewed and so he or she is familiar with their content.

This includes documents such as job applications, performance evaluations, letters of recognition, training records, and forms that relate to transfers and promotion. The fundamental principles and questions to consider when filing any document in an employee personnel file are these.

The following are recommendations about the documentation that an employer should keep in an employee personnel file. You will want to place in the employee personnel file only documents with which the employee is familiar.