Employee Personnel Files

Gomez

I am looking for a bit of advice from anyone in working in HR for the retail industry . . .

I work for an employer with a corporate office in NY and small retail stores (with anywhere from 9 to 40 employees at each store) and other facilities throughout the country. Historically, our retail stores have been less than successful in following policies and procedures concerning documentation and completing necessary paperwork, (but who doesn't have this problem?).

We keep our personnel files (originals) at our NY corporate office. Supervisors at each retail location keep supervisory files - but what should they be maintaining and what should they not keep record of (which should be only maintained by the corporate office)? I am aware that anything they keep in-store should be maintained at the corporate office as well, however, this rarely happens as it should.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Gar

In a previous HR assignment (Fortune 100 company), each employee had a service jacket kept at headquarters. It contained basic stuff like the original employment application, movement documentation (promotions, transfers, etc.) and other mundane matters such as employment verification requests. Each employee also had a departmental file which followed him/her from supervisor to supervisor over their entire career. It contained the meaty stuff like disciplinary action documentation (if any), performance evaluations, letters of commendation, etc. Employee's had access and could obtain copies of the service jacket and departmental file.

Most supervisors kept "supervisory files" on employees. It contained information the supervisor may not have wanted to share with the employee including information regarding discrimination charges and law suits the employee may have filed. The file was not transferable to anyone except the legal department. Last but not least, each employee had a medical file kept by the medical department. It contained related information including ADA accommodations and FMLA leaves. An employee had access to this file too. In my more than 30 years in the workplace, I've found this to be the best system.