Maintaining physical employee files is essential for employment-related business and legal compliance. These documents serve as a historical record of information pertaining to each employee, from their application to their date of separation.
Managing employee information can be challenging for organizations given the complex regulations dictating how data is stored and managed. Smart HR can take on this time-consuming task and ensure that your employees’ files are being handled appropriately. Our team can physically store, organize and manage your employees’ files, whether you choose to have us come to your offices to handle the files or keep them at our secure facility.
Our Employee File Management Process: A Brief Overview
- We begin by auditing all of your existing files for content compliance
- We will identify any areas where your files need to be restructured or reorganized to ensure they are thorough and compliant
- Our HR consultants will take over the ongoing maintenance of your employees’ files
Employment Verification
Smart HR offers employment verification, which is an important aspect of employee background checks. If employment verification was not conducted as part of the pre-employment screening process, it can be performed after hiring to make employee records more complete.
This entails verifying your employees’ past titles, employment dates and job duties to ensure they are qualified for their role and that their employment history is accurate. This can be achieved by reaching out to previous employers and checking databases. Employment verification should form part of each employee’s file.
The Components Of A Comprehensive Employee File
A single file should be kept for each employee that includes subsections for the following categories.
General File
Generally subject to the public records law, this file should contain the employee’s personnel data, application, offer and acceptance letters, any requests for personnel actions, a description of their position, non-medical test results and information about their compensation.
Employee Performance File
Another subsection that is generally subject to the public records law, this should contain performance evaluations, commendation and complaint letters, awards and achievements, information about training sessions, requests for corrective action, any disciplinary actions that are issued, and examples of the employee’s work.
Miscellaneous File
This should contain any employee requests to review their personnel file, records of job information or policies given to employees, leave forms, resignation letters and exit interview questions. This may or may not be subject to public records law.
Medical File
This is the place to store any injury or physical exam reports, medical certifications, FMLA information and ADA reasonable accommodation requests.
Controlled Access File
This might contain benefit plan choices, beneficiary information, reference checks, grievances, charges of discrimination, affirmative action and EEO data, legal action complaints, promotion records and education records.
Get In Touch With Smart HR
Streamline your workload, avoid compliance issues and keep costs down by entrusting your employee file management to the professionals at Smart HR. Reach out today to learn more about how our team can ensure your files are properly organized, secured and maintained.
