HR SPRING CLEANING | EMPLOYMENT DOCUMENT RETENTION GUIDELINES

(April 1, 2008)

 

In the name of organization, HR professionals and managers alike have been known to accidentally discard a document, whether paper or electronic, that they shouldn't have. Therefore, in your quest to clean out overflowing file cabinets or e-mail inboxes, take your time.

 

It's especially important to double-check any document related to the following topics before pitching them because they often have specific retention periods mandated by law (examples included).

 

• Hiring. Under Title VII, job applications and résumés must be kept for one year from the date of submission, and pre-employment tests must be kept for one year from the date of the test. The Immigration Reform and Control Act requires Form I-9 to be retained for three years from the date of hire or one year after termination, whichever is later.
  
• Termination. Documents related to layoff, recall, and reduction-in-force must be kept for one year from the date of the action as per Title VII.
  
• Promotion and demotion. Title VII also stipulates that records of promotions and demotions must be kept for one year from the date of the action.
  
• Work hours. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, time sheets or time cards must be kept for two years after the record is made.
  
• Leave. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act, records of the dates of leave taken under the Act must be kept for three years.
  
• Accommodation. Requests for reasonable religious accommodation must be kept for one year after the record is made as per Title VII. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, requests for disability-related reasonable accommodation must also be kept for one year after the record is made.
  
• Training. Under Title VII, documents related to the selection of employees for training opportunities must be kept for one year.

To ensure that e-mailed documents don't fall through the retention cracks, avoid using your inbox as a catch-all folder. This is crucial if your company has a system of deleting all messages contained in employees' inboxes after a certain number of days.

 

What you should do is create folders based on business needs. Turn off any automatic deletion features for these folders; consult with IT if necessary. Read a message, act on it as necessary (e.g., answer a question, follow a directive), and then delete or move to a specific folder. Remember, sort e-mails according to subject matter, and not subject line.

 

For the document retention requirements of over 50 employment records, check out AHI's Employer's Guide To Record-Keeping Requirements. Included in the Guide are document retention periods as outlined by both federal and state law.

 

Related Topic(s): Record-Keeping Documents - Organizing Personnel Files