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A personnel file is a way for companies to maintain information about the employees they hire. These files can include work history, employment certificates, and other applicable data used in hiring decisions. This article helps you create your own proper personnel file that will help protect your company’s interests as well as increase employee satisfaction.
The “personnel file checklist template word” is a free checklist that can be used to help create a personnel file. The document will provide you with a list of things that should be included in your personnel file.
A personnel file is a physical or computer folder that contains HR and payroll documentation for new, current, or former workers. In order to comply with federal and state labor standards, it should provide basic employee and pay information. Knowing what employment documents to keep in a safe personnel file will help you prevent costly errors and penalties. A printable employee file folder checklist and a personnel file checklist will be available later.
Companies should utilize an employee management platform like Rippling to protect personnel files and other worker information. It allows you to handle all aspects of employee administration in one spot, from onboarding to offboarding, as well as document management. To maintain compliance with federal, state, and local labor regulations, you may simply monitor and automate personnel data and operations. Request a free demo by filling out the form below.
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Employers Should Include These Documents in Personnel Files
From offer letters and W-4 forms through performance evaluations and termination papers, including record of each employee’s departure interview, the documents in an employee’s personnel file should cover the whole lifespan of their employment. The personnel file may be a real folder with printed documents or an electronic file saved using HR software such as Rippling.
Because the list of what constitutes a full personnel file is lengthy, we’ve broken it down into three sections: legally mandated, best practice, and optional components. Please download the following free employee file folder checklist and personnel file audit checklist before getting started:
- As a DOC or PDF file, download the employee file folder checklist.
- As an XLS or PDF file, download the personnel file audit checklist.
Documents to Keep in Personnel Files That Are Required By Law
Every personnel file must include eight employee-related HR papers, including legal employment records such as payroll tax filings and employee-employer agreements.
The following are the eight papers that must be included in every employee’s personnel file:
- Name, location, and phone number of employees, as well as emergency contact information
- W-4s and/or W-9s are IRS tax withholding documents.
- Information about pay and benefits: Any information from a paycheck or a credit card
- Non-compete agreements, employment contracts, and agreements pertaining to a company-provided automobile or corporate credit card are examples of contracts or agreements between the employee and the employer.
- Enrollment forms and beneficiary agreements are two documents related to employee benefits.
- Any legal or litigation papers pertaining to child support
- Documentation of submitted claims for workers’ compensation
- Paperwork relating to the worker’s termination, such as unemployment documents, insurance continuation forms, and so on.
Additional Documents to Include as a Best Practice in Employee Personnel Files
The following ten papers are optional, but they are often placed in an employee’s personnel file so that they may be conveniently accessible by the employee’s management, payroll, or the employee if necessary. They contain files relating to jobs and employers, such as job applications, performance evaluations, and employee time-off records.
The following are ten papers that should be included in every employee’s personnel file:
*In certain states, employers are obligated to keep track of sick days. It’s a good idea to retain them in the employee’s personnel folder if they aren’t saved electronically inside your payroll system.
Items to Include in Employee Personnel Files That Aren’t Required
Additional papers that might be included in an employee’s personnel folder are suggested by the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM). In many circumstances, the employer maintains these records, although they may not be stored in the personnel file. It is up to the employer to decide where these documents will be kept.
- Educational transcripts: If you utilize an LMS or an online training portal, for example, your workers’ training and certificates will almost certainly be preserved electronically.
- Employee goal-setting papers will very certainly be saved online if you utilize performance management software.
You may outsource payroll or use an all-in-one HR, benefits, payroll, and document management software like Rippling to monitor documents and handle paid time off (PTO) and benefits if all of this becomes too cumbersome as your company expands. Rippling allows you to save documents online, such as employee contracts, rules, and a copy of your staff handbook. Today is the last day to sign up for a free trial.
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What You Shouldn’t Keep in Your Personnel Files
There are papers that must be included in your personnel files, as well as items that should not be included in the employee’s personnel folder. The following are some of them:
- Except for the application, all pre-employment records
- Attendance records are kept monthly.
- Health-related information
- I-9 forms, copies of driver’s licenses, and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) records are all examples of documents relating to worker eligibility.
- The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), commonly known as health information privacy, protects private papers.
- Employee data that isn’t public, such as bank accounts, Social Security numbers, or immigration documentation, should be kept separate from the personnel folder.
Here are some options for how to store papers that should not be maintained in an employee’s personnel folder to keep things in order.
Consider separating all I-9 forms and associated documentation that verify an employee’s permission to work in the United States into a separate folder. I-9s may be inspected by Immigration Services officials and authorized Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers. You may wish to keep I-9s separate from employee personal information to minimize what agents might see.
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) Information: The EEOC allows job applicants to self-identify their handicap or veteran status on a voluntary basis (maintaining records related to these documents is required if you have 100 or more employees). We recommend keeping this paperwork separate from the individual’s personnel file; supervisors should not have access to this information to avoid discriminating against a protected class employee.
EEOC information is often stored separately from each new hire’s job application and résumé in online applicant tracking systems (ATS); HR can access it, but interviewers and managers cannot.
Medical Information: HIPAA’s medical information privacy requirements compel you to keep your employees’ medical records secret. Keep doctor’s notes and other health-related material separate if you have employees who have provided you doctor’s notes or other documentation, such as for medical leave.
If an employee asks maternity leave using FMLA request forms, for example, you should keep the request in a separate, secure FMLA file that only you and your HR manager, who is in charge of leave benefits administration, have access to. The manager of an employee should not have access to private health information included in the employee file.
Follow our guide to recruiting new staff for assistance setting up a hiring process.
How to Create Personnel Files for Employees
When a company is audited or issued with a lawsuit, the value of maintaining personnel files is sometimes overlooked. Don’t worry if you’re working in retrospect and worried about getting things set up for existing staff. Use the two templates we’ve supplied above, together with the instructions, to set up and organize your employee file folders.
To guarantee compliance and security, you should complete the following steps for organizing and maintaining personnel records:
Take a look around.
To begin, make a list of everything you already have for each employee. To keep track of what you’ve received, use a personnel file audit checklist. On the day of hiring, you should generate a personnel file for each employee. If you forget, search your past emails to see if you can uncover documentation in your inbox, such as employment resumes, performance reports, and tax filings. Make sure you have I-9 forms for each employee.
Determine what information is missing from each employee’s file.
Take into consideration the documentation you currently have and the information you want from each employee. Use the employee file folder checklist list to double-check that everything is in order, since it contains the forms from the previous section. It’s possible that each individual will demand their own list. For that reason, you may use the employee file folder checklist above. It’s also a good idea to start inspecting files on a regular basis to ensure that all of the information is current and correct.
Make sure your employees are aware of their personnel files.
Hold a company-wide gathering to inform all of your workers and explain why you’re generating personnel files. Explain why having strong employment documentation is beneficial for the company. Inform workers that you may want their assistance in gathering missing information, such as emergency contact information or résumé copies.
Request the items you’ll need to finish each employee’s file.
Give each employee their own checklist outlining what they need to provide to keep their personnel file up to date. Set a one-week deadline for all employee documentation to be received and completed. Make sure you go through each employee’s list with them present so you can address any issues straight away if anything wasn’t provided.
Within one week, follow up and secure the files.
Before the deadline, follow up with each employee from whom you asked more documentation to ensure that everyone has enough time to provide the missing paperwork. Then, either online, on your computer network, or in a protected file cabinet, save your papers.
Personnel Files with Restricted Access
You should restrict access to employee files to a single authorized person or department who needs authorization to examine the files. We also suggest putting the documents in a secured, fireproof filing cabinet. This is done to keep private employee information away from prying eyes.
Make a habit of auditing personnel files on a regular basis.
Schedule a review of each employee’s personnel file on a regular basis. When you perform their yearly review, you may do so. Ascertain that the files are correct, current, and comprehensive. If this is not the case, you might request that the employee supply you with the latest files or information. Before any audits, such as payroll or labor, your company should double-check that all of its paperwork are in order.
Please be aware that personnel files may be inspected or subpoenaed in the case of a wrongful termination litigation. You may prevent liabilities by keeping correct, up-to-date files. Learn how to utilize some of the personnel file papers upon employment by following our onboarding instruction.
Personnel Files: Federal and State Laws
Because you’re obligated to preserve employee data and personnel files, being compliance with federal and state law is a vital component of being an employer. At the federal and state levels, these are the best practices as well as what is necessary.
Personnel Files and Federal Law
All businesses covered by federal anti-discrimination legislation, which is generally any company with 15 full-time workers or more, are subject to labor regulations. The following rules, however, apply to all enterprises, and each agency has its own criteria and/or recommendations for document keeping.
- Employers are required by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to preserve all personnel or employment records for a year. A dismissed employee’s personnel records must be kept for one year from the date of termination.
- Employers are required to preserve payroll data for three years under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Employers must also retain any documented seniority or merit system, as well as any employee benefit plan (such as pension and insurance plans), on file for the duration of the plan or system’s existence and for at least one year following its dissolution.
- Employers are required to preserve payroll records for at least three years under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Employers must also preserve all documents for at least two years that explain the reason for paying varied salaries to workers of both genders in the same business (including pay rates, performance assessments, seniority and merit systems, and collective bargaining agreements).
Read our post on payroll records for additional information on needed documents.
Personnel Files and State Laws
The question of whether or not an employee has the right to see their personnel file is the subject of state legislation on personnel files. Employees in several states have the right to obtain copies of papers in their files. Employees in other states may have to initiate a lawsuit in order to examine their personnel file.
States with the Right to View
Workers in the following states have access to part or all of the papers in their personnel folder; several states are quite strict about what employees may see. Others allow for reasonable document copy costs to be charged by the employer. In Arizona, for example, payroll data may only be accessed.
For further information, go to your state’s Department of Labor (DOL) website.
Except for Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, and West Virginia, most states enable public (government) workers to access their employment documentation. Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin are among the states that have the “right to view personnel file.”
Conclusion
Maintaining personnel files is an essential component of being an employer and avoiding responsibility. It’s an excellent tool for organizing personnel data and assisting with human resource choices. You may handle the files online or on paper; in any case, it’s critical to include basic personnel reports and follow all applicable federal and state requirements.
Consider employing a cloud-based HR software like Rippling if you’re having trouble keeping track of paper-based personnel data. You may easily gather electronic signatures and save all employee documentation in an online database. The documents are kept on a secure server and may be accessed long after the employee has left the organization. Today is the last day to sign up for a free demo.
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This essay was written with the help of Zenia Lazaro.
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