Sorting Through the Personnel File

At one time a personnel file consisted of little more
than a job application and payroll information. Over
time, however, the personnel file grew to include
anything related to an individual’s employment. Here’s
what you need to know about personnel files to help you
keep track of your employees’ information.

by Charles McConnell NFIB.com

Basic information: This includes the employee’s name,
address, Social Security number, date of birth,
occupation and job classification. You should also
retain the employee’s job application and resume, and
any work authorizations (needed for employment of legal
aliens) or work permits for minors. The file should
also include records of employment actions: promotions,
demotions, transfers, layoffs, recalls, performance
evaluations, commendations, attendance, leave records,
disciplinary actions and other work-related matters.

I-9 Form: An absolute essential in every personnel file
since 1986 is the I-9 Form, necessitated by the
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Generated as
part of the hiring process, the I-9 Form is applicable
to all employers of one or more persons. IRCA provides
the legal basis for inspections of personnel files by
the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and
specifies fines for I-9s missing or incomplete.

Other materials: It was once common for an employee’s
personnel file to contain credit reports and other
financial information, personal legal actions such as
garnishment of pay, and workers’ compensation and
disability reports and other medically related
information. However, an accumulation of legislation
concerned with individual privacy and confidentiality
— including the Privacy Act of 1974, the Polygraph
Protection Act (1988), the Fair Credit Reporting Act
and various states’ privacy laws — has created a
separate standard for some employee information.

Personal financial information and medically related
information are now subject to a stricter standard
limiting access to them. For example, a short-term
disability report, once automatically inserted into an
employee’s personnel file, is now considered a medical
record and must be treated at the same level of
confidentiality as any other medical record. Record
accessibility is dependent on need-to-know — we
might even call it right-to-know — on the part of
those accessing the records. For example, a manager who
is considering an employee for promotion or transfer
may legitimately review a personnel file to learn of
the employee’s work history, capability and
performance, but this manager lacks the right to review
his or her health record. The health record, subject to
the stricter privacy standard, may be accessed by only
the employee and the employee’s medical caregivers; and
the health record, considered legally irrelevant in the
consideration of an employee’s capabilities, can
introduce bias into decision-making and encourage
discriminatory practices.

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