Spring Cleaning

A complete guide to cleaning out your employee files

While Solutions At Work offers an array of HR services that can help keep your business compliant with federal and state employment laws. With the last day of spring fastly approaching, we thought why not provide you with some helpful ‘Spring Cleaning’ tips on what to do with your employee files. As some of you may know, you should begin a personnel file for each employee on the date of hire. Most, but not all, important job-related documents should go in the file, including:

• Job description for the position
• Job application and/or resume
• Offer of employment
• IRS Form W-4 (the Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate)
• A receipt or signed acknowledgment of employee handbook
• Performance evaluations
• Forms relating to employee benefits
• Forms providing next of kin and emergency contacts
• Complaints from customers and/or coworkers
• Awards or citations for excellent performance
• Records of attendance or completion of training programs
• Warnings and/or other disciplinary actions
• Notes on attendance or tardiness
• Any contract, written agreement, receipt, or acknowledgment between the employee and the employer (such as a non-compete agreement, an employment contract, or an agreement relating to a company-provided car), and
• Documents relating to the worker’s departure from the company (such as reasons why the worker left or was fired, unemployment documents, insurance continuation forms, and so on).

When reviewing your employee files here are some questions to consider when spring cleaning your employee files.

• Does the file contain every written evaluation of the employee?
• Does the file reflect all of the employee’s raises, promotions, and awards?
• Does the file show every warning or other disciplinary action taken against the employee?
• If your company policy states that written warnings or other records of discipline be removed after a certain period, have they been removed?
• If the employee was on a performance improvement plan, a probationary or training period, or another temporary status, has it ended? Has the file been updated to reflect the employee’s current status?
• If your employee handbook has been updated recently, does the file contain a receipt or acknowledgment for the most recent version?
• Does the file contain current versions of every contract or other agreement between you and the employee?

If you have specific HR-related questions and would like to see what services Solutions At Work can offer you and your company. Contact us at 775-828-7420 or email us at solutions@mysolutionsatwork.com to see how we can help you!