Managing HR Records

There are a number of compelling reasons to look at how an organisation records and manages HR records. Effective HR recordkeeping ensures that up-to-date employee information is readily available, it helps to support and document the organisation's employment activities, it helps to ensure an organisation complies with a range of different legislation, and it provides the information needed to assess the effectiveness of HR policies and procedures. HR record keeping is an essential activity for all employers.

HR records include data on roles within the organisation together with data relating to members of staff (for example work-patterns and the hours worked by staff, and remuneration records and absence levels). HR records are usually stored electronically but they often include paper documents as well. In practice, most employers keep a combination of physical and electronic records.

Employee Records

HR records will cover the entire employment life-cycle from recruitment and onboarding to retirement. Employee-related information will comprise a record of events (absence records, changes to benefits) together with notes on discussions and meetings, and copies of documents. It’s also good employment practice to keep records of each worker’s training and development activities, details of appraisals and staff reviews, and general employment history (date of join, job changes, promotions, etc.).

A clear structure regarding how and where information is recorded and updated is key to having this information accessible and having confidence that it has been kept up-to-date.

Legislation

The benefits associated with effective HR recordkeeping are sufficient for most organisations, but legislation also requires that employers keep HR records for members of staff. To comply with the law, organisations must record some personal information, absence records (employee leave and sickness absence), expenses and payroll data. For example, the Data Protection Act 2018 requires organisations to tell employees why the organisation is collecting the information, what will happen to it and who will see it when handling personal data. The act also specifies statutory retention periods for HR records.

Keeping HR records beyond those required by law can benefit a business in many ways. It can help to match staff resources with production or service requirements, avoid or defend employment tribunal claims if a dispute with a worker arises, assess the performance and productivity of individual workers or teams, ensure that job applicants and workers are treated consistently and fairly, and make decisions in relation to staffing levels (for example, on recruitment and redundancy matters).

Thought must be given to the justification for keeping detailed personal information. Employers can however keep the following data about their employees without their permission: name, address, date of birth, gender, contact details (including email address and telephone number), bank details (for payment of salary), emergency contact details, employment history (including job titles, work locations and dates), training records and qualifications.

Employers do of course have a duty to keep their HR records safe, secure and up to date. This applies to both paper-based records and electronic records. In addition, there are also clear rules about how long employee information can be kept once an individual has left the organisation (after which time, an organisation must have an effective way of ensuring all personal information is deleted).

Dealing with fragmented personnel data is one of the most challenging aspects of data-security. It is nearly impossible to secure or even keep track of employee information recorded in by line managers within e-mail messages, local copies of spreadsheets (for example, the absence records for their team) or Word documents. HR software that enables organisations to store and manage employee records centrally in a secure and organised manner can help to address this issue.