Records to KeepAnd How to Keep Them

As an HR professional, you know how mind-numbing it can be to realize how much data an employee can produce. From resumes to performance reviews, even a short-time employee can create quite a file. If you’re looking for ways to clean up all that paper, here are some guidelines on what should be kept and for how long.

Each of the following should be in separate files:

• Information that can affect one’s employment, such as applications, resumes, performance reviews, disciplinary actions and training records. This is generally referred to as the employee’s file and is most often made available for inspection by the employee upon request, so it is best not to clutter up this file with information that is not employment related. You may also keep compensation and benefits information in this folder, if only to keep it handy for reference.
  
  

• I-9 Forms. These are not required in a separate file, but may be convenient if requested by Department of Labor inspectors. If you do your own internal payroll, a good suggestion is to keep these with tax withholding records.
  
  

• Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) records. By law, these cannot be used for employment status issues and shouldn’t be part of the employee’s file.
  
  

• Medical information, such as pre-employment health exams and workers compensation medical evaluations.
  
  

How long should you keep these records? Again, practices (and state laws) vary but here are some recommended minimum lengths:

• Hiring Records (not related to hired employees): one year
• Basic Employee Information (including I-9): four years from termination
• Payroll and Benefits Information: five years
• Employment Actions (firing, demotions, promotions): four years
• Job-related Illnesses and Injuries: five years
• Medical Exams: 30 years
• Toxic substance and blood-borne pathogen exposure records: 30 years

You may also want to consider exploring how much of this information can be stored in your HRIS. Or better yet, go paperless! For the medium sized company under 2,000 employees, a great option is optical scanning.

There are many relatively inexpensive systems on the market that allow employers to scan paperwork onto magneto-optical disks, each capable of holding up to 60,000 pages of text. Depending on the speed of the scanner and other system appointments, these systems generally run anywhere from $12,000 to $30,000.

Many of the big copier companies, such as Xerox and Canon have these systems, but there are other systems such as BitWise Designs’ DocStar (www.docstar.com) which are focused solely on small to medium-sized company needs.

Link to listings of HRMS articles and vendors.