During the employee life cycle, HR documents are often required to support the employment relationship and HR processes. It’s essential to keep HR documents as a historical record of your employees when required for several reasons such as legal compliance, potential disputes and, of course, good practice.
Employers and managers can feel overwhelmed when it comes to HR documents, especially if they don’t have the knowledge, experience or guidance on how to manage it. Naturally, no one wants to make an error unwittingly, especially if it could have potentially costly consequences for the company.
So, to support you in managing your HR responsibilities around written HR documentation, we have put together this guide to help you to use HR documents well. We will be discussing which HR documents you are legally required to issue and keep and how you should store these in relation to duration, security and confidentiality.
What are HR documents?
HR documents are used to communicate, and record information about an employment relationship between an employee and an employer from the start of an individual’s employment, to the end. For example, they are used to inform employees about company policies. Other examples include the written statement of employment particulars (often included in an employment contract), job descriptions and employee handbooks. Such documents can be stored electronically or as paper records.
Depending on the type of HR document, the information may include events and actions taken. For example, HR documentation relating to a disciplinary process will contain meeting notes, actions, outcomes and letters.
Types of HR documents
There are many forms of HR documentation, and those you offer and keep will depend on your company. While some will be formal, such as letters outlining performance or changes to employment, there will also be informal documents, including meeting notes or emails.
Some HR documents are specific to an employee, and others, such as policies or an employee handbook, will be company-specific.
Essential HR documents
So, what HR documents should you consider as essential for your team? Some HR documents are legally required, so you will need to ensure you are prepared to issue these documents as and when required.
Let’s take a look at some of the core HR documents you will need to be able to issue:
Written Statement of Employment Particulars
(typically included as part of a Contract of Employment)
Every employee or worker must receive a written statement of particulars of employment (under the Employment Rights Act 1996) on or before the individual’s first day of work. This document will include details about an employee’s contract such as salary, start date etc.
Read our guide for further information: Issuing contracts of employment and the written statement of employment particulars.
Essential company policies
(typically included in an Employee Handbook)
As an employer, you must have a Health and Safety policy (in writing if your company has more than five employees). We also recommend you have a disciplinary, grievance and dismissal policy in writing. Such policies are often included in an Employee Handbook, which should also ideally include policies on:
- Maternity/paternity/adoption
- Absence
- Performance
- Redundancy
- Equality and diversity
- Equal opportunities
- Data Protection and security
- Bullying and harassment
Disciplinary and grievance procedures
Why do we recommend having a disciplinary, grievance and dismissal policy?
Well, there are specific disciplinary and grievance procedures you must follow to comply with the Acas Code of Practice. If an employment claim is raised against your company and it reaches the employment tribunal, you will need to show that you have followed the Acas Code of Practice or the tribunal can increase the awarded amount to the individual by up to 25%.
Therefore, it’s essential to review the Acas Code and ensure that you, as an employer, create and maintain all the relevant written disciplinary or grievance documents for every affected employee.
Which disciplinary and grievance HR documents should be kept?
In addition to introducing a written company disciplinary and grievance policy, certain documents associated with individual disciplinary and grievance cases should be kept confidentially and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. Acas suggest that the following records should be kept, and copies of meeting notes should be given to the individuals involved:
- The nature of the disciplinary or grievance
- The decisions and actions taken, and the reasons for the actions
- Details of appeals if applicable (for example, the outcome)
- Any other developments
What are the risks of not keeping HR documents?
If there is an employee dispute, HR documents will be essential. For cases that go to tribunal, documents will be used for factual information and as evidence.
Therefore, it’s imperative that HR documents are kept up-to-date and in accordance with the law. You should document performance meetings, grievance and disciplinary meetings, and the associated notes and letters etc., to add to the employee’s records.
Other reasons to keep HR documents
It’s not just disputes that require up-to-date and accurate HR documents; there are also other reasons why you should ensure that you manage your records well:
Subject access requests
Employees can request personal data stored by the company, and companies must adhere to such requests. Therefore, it’s important to have organised and up-to-date records and documents of all employees.
Professionalism
Similar to the point above, in order to remain professional and able to provide information if requested, you must store and protect all employee HR documents.
Good practice for keeping HR documents
While there is some HR documentation that a company must legally provide and keep, there are many other documents relating to the following areas of the employee life cycle which should be included in HR employee records as good practice:
Onboarding
There will be a number of HR documents that will be important to issue and keep to support the onboarding process when a new employee joins the team.
For example, this might include the contract of employment (including the written statement of employment particulars), job description, CV and interview notes, offer letter and various new joiner forms.
Changes to employee terms and conditions
If there are changes occurring to the terms and conditions of employment, these should be documented and signed. If you as an employer have proposed changes which amounts to a formal change to terms and conditions, there are processes you need to follow, including consulting with employees about the changes.
Read more in our guide: Changing employee terms and conditions: Proceed with caution
Performance
There are HR documents that will assist performance management, including performance appraisals, notes from performance meetings or investigations and training request forms.
Attendance
It will be useful when managing different forms of absence (including annual leave, sickness, maternity, paternity or adoption leave) to have written records and support any actions or processes with HR documentation.
This may depend on the systems you have in place and your company policy. For example, some companies record all annual leave through self-service IT systems, such as an HRIS and others may use signed annual leave request forms.
You can find out more about HR information systems in our guide: 7 things to look for in a HR Information System
Termination
When an employee leaves, there will be various HR documents that record the process. These include the resignation or termination letter, exit interview notes and, in some cases, redundancy documentation.
Qualities of good HR documentation
It may seem obvious, but the actual content of formal HR documents and their communication could negatively affect engagement and motivation. Done well, this is where effective HR processes can really shine (or poorly done, the opposite!). What are some of the key qualities HR documentation should have?
Legally compliant and consistent
Formal HR documents should be written according to UK law and should contain a consistent format where possible.
Don’t forget to review and update documents. You should ideally review your handbook and policies annually to ensure they reflect any legislation changes.
Issued on time
It’s important to issue documents at the right time. For example:
- The written statement of particulars of employment should be issued to an employee or worker on or before their first day of work.
- Letters outlining changes in working hours should be written and sent to the employee close to the change.
- Or if members of a team are all receiving annual pay increases, the letters should be sent at the same time as it’s not good practice to send some without others.
Accurate
While it’s important to be timely with issuing HR documents, accuracy is essential. For example, it does not look professional if an employee receives a contract or letter with incorrect information. For new starters, HR documentation can create a terrible impression if it is late or inaccurate.
Importantly, as some HR documents are legal documents, they must be factually correct in case they are required in a legal dispute.
Top tip: Fitzgerald HR Client Members benefit from full access to PeopleStreams, which provides a template HR documentation library. Find out about our membership plan: Retained HR Services
HR Documents: Four tips for managers
There are several things to consider when creating documents that will be stored on an employee file.
Ideally, a member of HR should be responsible for overseeing what is added to each file to ensure that documents are factual and appropriate.
However, managers also need to be onboard and play an active part in issuing and retaining HR documentation. We’ve outlined some tips for managers to assist good practice:
1. Informal HR documents are worth keeping where relevant
Informal documents can be added to records where relevant. These may relate to discussions between a manager and an employee. These might be notes documenting informal one to ones, performance discussions, or email correspondence.
2. HR documents should reflect facts, not opinions
HR document information should comprise of facts rather than opinion because records should describe events rather than judgement. For example, if there is an issue with an employee’s timekeeping, records should show the dates and time of lateness and meetings about timekeeping. Documents should not include opinions from the line manager about the employee or lateness.
3. HR documents should be created at the time of the event, rather than in retrospect
Documents should be created or updated as close to the event as possible so that information is accurate and up-to-date, and it doesn’t get forgotten.
4. Changes should be documented
Each employee change must be communicated and documented for clear records.
Read: Changing employee terms and conditions: Proceed with caution
HR document security and confidentiality
Security is essential for storing employee information, and no one can have escaped the knowledge of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which was reinforced in UK law by the Data Protection Act 2018. As many HR documents will contain information about the employee, this data must be confidential and protected in accordance with data protection legislation.
Read our guide to GDPR for managers: The Complete Guide to GDPR for Employers
Retention Strategy
It would be a data protection breach to keep HR documents indefinitely, so each company must create and maintain systems for holding HR data. A document retention policy will outline the company approach and follow relevant legislation.
There are specific limits to how long some personal data can be held, however not all HR documents are confined to set limits. If there is any doubt about how long to keep an HR document for, good practice suggests six years. Therefore, a company should follow legal guidance and ensure records or documents are not kept longer than they should be and are always securely destroyed when the time comes.
Data security and storage
Employee records amount to personal data, and as such should be stored securely in accordance with data protection legislation.
You should ensure your systems enable you to be compliant with data protection legislation. For example, personal records need to be stored securely, and your employees should be informed about your lawful basis for processing their personal data, and their rights in a Data Protection Policy, for example.
Find out more in our guide to the GDPR for managers:
The Complete Guide to GDPR for Employers
More resources are also available on the ICO website.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is also important when it comes to keeping HR documents. HR professionals must not share employee records (verbally or in writing) unless there is a valid reason.
For more guidance on data protection for your organisation, visit the ICO website.
Key takeaways on HR Document Management
To sum up, employers must create, hold and monitor HR documents for a legally compliant and effective HR function and company.
Ensuring you keep a written history of employee discussions, changes, and events means that you have an accurate history of each person. Such information can support promotions, disputes and misconduct cases and should abide by statutory document requirements.
Care must be taken to adhere to confidentiality, retention and security rules, and such conditions must be applied to all employees for fairness and consistency and to comply with data protection legislation.
The maintenance of an employee’s HR documents is an essential role of an HR department, and it’s also worthwhile for HR to work closely with managers to educate them on the ‘dos and don’t’ of record creation.
How we can help
We hope you found this guide useful. If you would like to talk to us about your HR documents and learn more about how we can help, please contact our team, we would be delighted to hear from you.
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