I-9 Employment Verification

sylviagallaher

Our company has a corporate office and several branch offices located throughout the United States. Once a branch manager has collected all required new hire paperwork, he/she will send it all to HR at our corporate office where the appropriate files are set up and stored.

Is it necessary for the branch offices to keep copies of the I-9 Employment Verification Form and the accompanying forms of identification? Should our branch managers also be keeping copies of all remaining personnel paperwork in their offices?

I ask these questions as we are concerned that should one of our branch offices be audited by the government, might they be fined for not having this information filed on site? Any information you can provide me with is very much appreciated.

Thank you,
Sylvia Gallaher
HR Director, GST Corporation

Brad Forrister

Margaret Morford, in her policy on recordkeeping, suggests keeping them all at the corporate level and sending someone from HR to the branch in the event of an audit.

Brad Forrister
Director of Publishing
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Don D

But to answer your question, it is not required that any certain records be kept on site, for personnel files. Certain OSHA advisory materials and files must be kept on site; however, others can be kept in an office of record at other locations as long as they can be produced in accordance with the requirements of the agency which is requesting that they be produced. And that may vary. You will sometimes be well served by the fact that you can tell a surprise 'inspector', we don't have those on site, I'll have to contact corporate. 'Huddle time' is a good thing.

mrsbowden

I think I just read that there is not any requirement of location of file as long as they will take no longer than 3 days to produce incase of an audit. Good Luck...The I-9's get trickier everytime I read about them. x:)