Content of Personnel Files

HR Surprise · May 2001

Scenerio: community health center with 5 sites, HR located in admin office separate from clinics.
Problem: Resistance from medical personnel to send physician employment appraisals-peer reviews, and/or disciplinary actions to HR. They feel these items should not be part of personnel file, but kept at the clinic (Med. Director's office). I maintain all personnel records should be in HR - if they would like to keep a copy they can, but originals need to be in HR files. This debate has been going for a year. PLEASE HELP!

smarti · May 2001

We are a med clinic much like yourself with several locations. I'm sorry your having this kind of a problem. Of course all personnel records should only have a single authority and be centralized. The debate will continue forever if top management or CEO doesn't give support to the idea. If JCAHO is involved, your standards require such. If you are not accredited by Joint Commission, Med providers seem to think they can keep separate records creating the inconsistent application of company policies. I agree Peer reviews, competency's etc should be in HR regardless of location. If you want to e-mail me, we can talk further. [email]sharonmarrow@greenecountyhealthcare,inc.com[/email]. Good luck, you have a serious problem.

Don · May 2001

We found a happy medium for this problem by maintaining all Personnel files for Physicians, Department Directors and up in Administration. There are a number of good arguments for centralization of all files but I think employee confidence must also be considered. Our doc's appreciate the files being located where only Administrative level people have access.

System · May 2001

For what it's worth, a word of caution about permitting secondary pers files to be maintained by a department. A typical employee lawsuit involving your organization will normally subpoena the pers file during the discovery phase. This addt'l pers file is also discoverable and may expose you to addt'l risk due to unconventional items being placed in that file. I would recommend explaining that your pers files will be centrally maintained as a means of reducing organizational risk, ensuring legal compliance, JCAHO (IF APPLICABLE), FLSA, etc........

Douglas Neu RI · May 2001

I agree with the last posting. I've dealt with a number of cases in which a former employee's supervisor or manager has kept their own file on someone, and the file does not always help the employer's case and in fact can hurt. This is particularly true when the supervisor/manager's file is not provided to the company's attorneys, but it can almost always be obtained by the former employee's lawyer through discovery. The bottom line is that it pays to know before you get sued what documents your supervisors and managers have on their employees!

I hope this helps.

Doug Neu
Editor, Rhode Island Employment Law Letter
Powers, Kinder & Keeney, Inc.
[email]dneu@pkklaw.com[/email]

Margaret Morford · May 2001

I absolutely agree with Doug on this. One suggestion I would make is to tell the managers and supervisors that they may keep copies of anything they wish in their files, but that their files cannot contain "originals" of any document. Those all go into the employee's personnel file. Remind them that the organization could get into criminal trouble if the organization responds to a subpoena and fails to provide everything. Paint the picture of the manager/supervisor being put on the witness stand to explain to the judge and/or jury why these documents were not provided when requested.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge

TheCol · May 2001

Quick word to the millions of readers -
Nice discussion here, I concur top to bottom and add....

HIV information must be kept away from the casual and routine access of personnel files.

Content of Personnel Files

Comments