A clear but brief employment overview
Personal information
For every member of staff you employ, there’s a stack of personal information that needs to be kept and this is generically known as their personnel record. When an employee first starts working for you, all the basics, such as their home address, phone numbers, bank details, NI number, and next of kin/emergency contact details can be obtained by asking them to complete our new starter form (see The next step ).
During employment
As time goes on, not only must this information be regularly reviewed and updated, there will be other details which will need to the retained. For example, there should be a clear record of:
- all training that’s been undertaken during the course of employment
- any contractual changes, such as an increase (or decrease) in salary
- any promotions given (on either a temporary or permanent basis)
- dates of holidays taken
- dates of all other authorised and unauthorised absences
- any disciplinary action taken.
Lots of paperwork
When kept properly, personnel records generate a large amount of paperwork which will only increase the longer an employee remains in your employment. This is all part of your role as an employer and can’t be avoided. However, whilst good personnel records are a must, it can be difficult to find certain information quickly.
Employment overview record
The solution to this is to have a brief history of employment at the start of every employee’s personnel file - we’ve created this document for you in the form of an employment overview record (see The next step ). It allows you to see key details about an employee and their employment history.
On the front page
The first section is a snapshot of all the vital facts and important dates that you might need, e.g. the employee’s date of birth, start/leaving dates and jobs held within your company. Thereafter, on the following pages, you can record details relating to the employee’s training record, absences, holidays, lateness, accidents at work and sickness absence. Only list brief, but important, details on these pages - not the full background which should be held elsewhere.
Tip. Because our form only refers to general sickness absence, i.e. it does not allow you to record specific details about the root cause, it is not classed as “sensitive personal data” under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). Equally, whilst the DPA says that personal information should not be retained for any longer than is absolutely necessary - which means that documents relating to expired disciplinary action must be destroyed - there’s nothing to stop you retaining a short overview of what happened at the time as that’s all part of the employee’s employment history.
For a free new starter form and employment overview record, visit http://tipsanadadvice-personnel.co.uk/download (PS 17.04.05).
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