Personnel Files

Plug in: Making the leap to electronic HR records

09/21/2012

Many employers are making the leap to “paperless” HR. Digital records are easy to access and cheap to archive. But despite the many benefits of electronic records storage, a host of legal problems could derail even the best-intentioned digital records plan. Here are the issues to consider before you make the transition.

Managing e-records: Guidelines for purging email

09/16/2012

Smart organizations educate employees about acceptable email use and follow a policy of regular computer-file purging to keep the company network free of unnecessary data storage. But what if your organization thinks it may be a lawsuit target? Should you keep purging email messages in accordance with your regular policy?

5 rules for documenting HR decision-making

08/25/2012

The best way to prevent lawsuits or to get a quick dismissal of unfounded charges is to document every employment decision carefully. Following these five simple rules can convince judges and juries that your HR decision-making is legit, above board and fully in line with the law.

What should we keep in personnel files?

08/23/2012

Q. Does Pennsylvania law specify what we should keep in personnel files?

Do former employees have the right to demand copies of their personnel files?

07/24/2012

Q. We recently fired an employee who worked in our office. Several weeks later, our HR department received a phone call from the man demanding a copy of his personnel file. Are we required to send him a copy?

Does an employee have a right to ‘correct’ a discipline report that’s going into her file?

07/10/2012

Q. We recently disciplined an employee for repeated insubordination because of her attitude toward her supervisor. We wrote her up and placed a warning report in her file. Now she is protesting the accuracy of the report and demanding the chance to “correct” it. Can we force her to sign our disciplinary report as-is?

Feds consider revisions to I-9 verification form

06/07/2012

That infamous I-9 employment verification form you must complete for each new employee may be going through some changes soon. The USCIS recently published a draft of revisions to the I-9 form and requested public comment on the proposed changes.

Documentation: Not for your eyes only

05/09/2012

Under the rules of “discovery,” employees (and courts) are privy to almost any employment-related document during a dispute. Keep that in mind when you’re preparing in-house documents, formal and informal. Here are a few do’s and don’ts.

Must we honor an attorney’s request for our employee’s personnel records?

04/12/2012

Q. We recently received a letter from an attorney representing one of our employees. It requested “all personnel files and records, including all medical records” that we have on this employee. The letter contained an “authorization” that the employee had signed, but which did not specifically name our company. Do we have to provide this information? What if we don’t? And is there any risk to the company if we do provide it?

Error on the I-9: Edit it or create a new one?

04/03/2012

Q. If an error is found on an employee’s I-9 form, can HR request that the employee complete a new form?