In the HR department it can be a headache to decide which documents to keep and which to toss. Between employee reviews, on-boarding paperwork, payroll information, employment applications, and many more – it can be arduous and torturous for an HR department to know what to throw out, and when. There is even legal implications to tossing or keeping these files for a certain amount of time. Here’s an excerpt from an entry on HuffingtonPost last week…
While you or your managers may not be responsible for the each of the records listed below, it doesn’t hurt to know the required retention periods of those documents you may turn to during the course of business. To help you with your efforts, we’re providing some record-keeping guidelines for you. Here are some of the documents you should probably retain with the required retention periods for the ones you’re most likely to reference.
- Accommodation requests: one year after record is made
- Applications for employment: one year from date of submission
- Basic employee information: four years after record is made
- Basic payroll information: three years after record is made
- Dates Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave is taken: three years from end of leave
- Demotion records: one year from date of action
- Form I-9: three years from date of hire or one year after termination, whichever is later
- Job advertisements: one year after record is made
- Job descriptions: two years after record is made
- Job evaluations: two years after record is made
- Layoff, reduction-in-force, recall records: one year from time of request
- Merit, incentive, seniority system records: two years from the date record is made
- OSHA Forms 300, 300A, 301: five years following the end of calendar year records cover
- Pre-employment tests: one year from date of test
- Promotion records: one year from date of action
- Records relating to discrimination charges: until final disposition of charges
- References: one year after record is made
- Résumés: one year after submission
- Termination records: one year after termination
- Time cards/sheets: two years after record is made
- Transfer records: one year from date of action
Wow! That is a lot to keep track of in paper or spreadsheets. With a cloud-based HRIS, you no longer have to worry about how much office space you have to keep all these files, they’ll be held electronically instead. Going paperless, and saving space both physically and electronically is critical for the survival of any HR department.
A modern HRIS will also have all the proper security measures included so all of this sensitive information will be safe from hackers and identity thieves. So save your team the headaches and a lot of filing cabinet space by installing an HRIS with capabilities that comply with sensitive information rules and regulations. Contact us to get started!