Attorney at Law
“Personnel file” may conjure up the image of a manilla folder in a dusty file cabinet, or a seldom accessed digital file, where an application form, some tax withholding authorizations and benefit designations molder away. In some organizations, this may well still be considered “the personnel file,” but it is almost certainly only a fraction of the real thing.
A Connecticut statute defines a personnel file as all documents pertaining to a particular employee that the employer uses to determine the employee’s eligibility for any employment action, such as hire, termination, promotion, transfer, compensation change, to name a few. Documents don’t have to be housed in something the employer calls the personnel file to be part of it. For example, a supervisor’s desk notes used as memory aids for an annual performance review that determines eligibility for a raise are part of the personnel file, even if no other manager or Human Resources representative even knows of their existence.
Some things are specifically not part of the personnel file according to the statute, including records of an employer’s investigation of possible wrongdoing. These are “security files,” unless and until the investigation leads to an employment action, like a firing, when they become personnel file documents. “Medical records,” any job-related medical information documents prepared by a health care professional, are outside the personnel file. In fact, the employer must maintain these separately.
Employees have the right to examine their personnel files within seven business days of a written request up to twice a year. (Former employees making such written requests within one year after termination also have a right of inspection within ten business days after the written request.) Medical record examination must also be permitted on such a request, but the examiner must be the employee’s selected health care provider. The employer must provide copies of personnel files and medical records within a reasonable time of the employee’s request.
The employer must give an employee a copy of any document memorializing a disciplinary action within a day of its imposition, and a copy of any document recording termination of employment.
If an employee disagrees with anything contained in the personnel file or medical record, she can request the employer to correct or remove it. If the request is not granted, the employee may require the employer to make the employee’s statement of disagreement part of the file.
Aside from time records and US work authorization verification documents, there are few documents an employer is legally required to maintain as a personnel file or medical record. Nevertheless, there are many practical reasons for an employer to make and refer to these records, and almost every employer does so.
So, why should an employer truly care about this dull, housekeeping detail? Here are a few reasons.
When a current or former employees seeks examination or copies of the personnel file, the employer who just grabs that manilla folder from the dusty filing cabinet, may regret it. If that employee asserts a legal claim against the organization, the employer may well discover helpful documents that support its defense in a supervisor’s desk, or emails, or text messages or other digital communication that never made it into the file that got disclosed. Their absence from the original disclosure can suggest that the helpful documents are recent fabrications.
Keeping personnel files unified and current also helps an employer head off and correct non-compliant management actions. For example, a supervisor might make cite poor attendance as a performance for an employee who actually has a time off disability accommodation or is using protected leave. Too often a lack of understanding of the employer’s obligations goes unnoticed until a dispute causes a closer look at the documents the employer could have noted and fixed before things went south.