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Employees Seeking Personnel Files Make Employers Nervous

By Robin Salisian     
Posted on 08/16/07 at www.lawcrossing.com

    
    How do you make your employer nervous? Ask to see your personnel file.

More and more, employees are requesting to peruse their files. The reasons?

"A bad economy is creating more layoffs and terminations, which has employees more closely scrutinizing their personnel files and challenging terminations; people switch jobs more often now and want to know if anything in their file will help them or hurt them in another job; and several legislative efforts have been made to give employees wider access to their personnel files," says an article on www.law.com.

Not all employers need to be nervous, especially if they are informed on how to keep "accurate and detailed personnel records," continues the article. However, for small employers who lack having an H.R. staff or knowing certain laws, they could risk losing a lawsuit.

"Labor and employment attorneys say personnel files are a legal land mine for employers. Defamatory information could lead to a defamation suit. Personal information such as age, race, sex or medical information could lead to a discrimination suit. Poor documentation—or none at all—could sway a jury that there's no proof of bad performance in a wrongful termination suit," the article goes on to say.

And if employers complain that they don't have time to keep detailed files, Jill Fisher, who chairs the employment law practice group at Zarwin, Baum, DeVito, Kaplan, Schaer, Toddy in Philadelphia, said, "My response is basically, 'It's your protection.'"

35 states, along with the District of Columbia, have laws allowing employees to access their personnel files. The states without laws include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Montana, New Jersey, and New York, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

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