Missing Records, What to Do?
pijanowski
3 Posts
Hello all:
I have been recently hired at a non-profit that has undergone some tremendous changesl in personnel the past year. Half the staff was laid off, including the all the executive staff. There is a new CEO, and we're trying to peice together the organization.
I've found that some of the personnel files are missing. The files that we do have seem to be incomplete or have inappropriate documents in them.
Other than reconstructing the files from square one, are there any legal ramifications I should be concerned about? I can fix what I know, it's the stuff I don't know that scares me.
Thanks for any advice.
Comments
Having come into an organization before that was also in a state of caos here is what I did. I found personnel files and stuff that should be in the personnel files everywhere. I found personnel files in some of the managers desks around the operation. I basically went on a search. Look in places that you would think no one would put stuff like this and this is where I found information (desks, closets, boxes no one had touched in years, file cabinets, etc.) Part of the reason I went on this hunt is as I was talking to some of the managers they would show me documents that should have been in the personnel file. You mentioned about the stuff you don't know that scares you. By going on this hunt I found things that helped me figure out what was going on over the past years. Some of the stuff you will never be able to recover. I had managers that wanted to terminate employees for violations to the attendance policy but I couldn't find the disciplinary documentation to show that we had followed the proper procedures so the answer was no. The manager had to start from square one.
While I was doing this I also did an I-9 audit and had everyone complete a new one. Just about every I-9 I could find was wrong and many were missing. Many were in the personnel files.
The other thing I did was to make sure that I found and tried to piece together payroll information, so that we had the backup that we are required to have by state law (in MD it is 3 years worth of data).