Resources > Blog > How to Best Organise Employee Documents
How to Best Organise Employee Documents
Published on January 16, 2023
Organising personnel files can help the human resources departments more effectively store documents and ensure accurate submission of information whenever necessary. It is thus critical to creating a procedure that complies with company policies and legal regulations. You can determine the best method for your needs by learning strategies for storing, receiving, and securing employee documents. In this article, we define personnel files, describe who needs to know how to organise them, provide critical steps for organising personnel files, and provide some tips for effectively sorting them.
How to organise personnel files?
It is vital to ensure all relevant information is collected and organised so that it is easy to find when reviewing someone’s record or issuing new instructions. One method is to create separate folders for each type of document: personnel files, employment contracts, pay slips, and so on. This way, all the relevant information is easily accessible without searching through piles of paper. Additionally, it’s essential to keep track of which documents need updates or revisions – keeping an up-to-date personnel file can be critical when making decisions about promotions or layoffs. Finally, ensure all employees have access to the file folder(s) where their documents are stored – this will help ensure that they can provide accurate information when necessary.
Determine which documents to store
When organising employee documents, HR professionals typically have three main concerns: protecting employees’ privacy, ensuring that all relevant information is accessible, and maintaining an accurate record of employee activity.Here are some tips on how to best address each of these issues:
1. Protecting employees’ privacy: Many organisations opt to store employee documents in a secure location, away from prying eyes. However, this decision depends on several factors, including the sensitivity of the information contained within them and whether or not the organisation has a policy prohibiting its employees from sharing such information with others outside of work.
2. Ensuring that all relevant information is accessible: When organising employee documents, ensuring that all relevant information is easily accessible is key. This means creating folders and file systems based on specific topics (e.g., vacation leave) and keeping track of which files have been updated recently so they can be quickly reaccessed.
3. Maintaining an accurate record of employee activity: Keeping an accurate description of what employees are doing inside and outside work can be tricky, but it’s essential to ensure compliance with applicable policies or laws. HR professionals may use software like Employee File Manager (EFM) or Microsoft Office 365 Document Management Services (ODMS) to do this effectively.
Choose a filing method
To help employees stay organised, HR professionals often choose one of two filing methods: paper or electronic. Paper filing is the traditional method in which employees document their work with memos and other materials. However, this system can be time-consuming and challenging to manage, especially with many files. And in today’s context, especially if you are with an enterprise, the idea of storing paper documents is not practical at all, given the possible load. On the other hand, electronic filing is a more efficient way to store employee documents. Employees can save all their documents in a single location online, making it easy to find and access them when needed. Additionally, this system makes it easier for employers to keep track of employee performance and compliance.
Create a file retention policy
One of the most important things that an HR professional can do is create a file retention policy. This will dictate how long employee documents should be kept and what actions should be taken if those documents need to be retained appropriately. By creating this policy, you will help ensure that your organisation can keep accurate records of employees and their work performance.
Beyond what is shared, there are more ingenious ways to manage the record-keeping of employee documents. Such as using ePFile, the centralised document management App by Rolling Arrays built explicitly for SAP SuccessFactors. You can easily manage employee documents in one place without replicating them and with the same permissions. It is seamlessly embedded in SAP SuccessFactors for the ultimate smoother user experience.