Managing Personnel Records - International Records Management ...

It is also necessary to include on the front of the cover
? the employee’s name
? the employee’s number.
It may also be desirable to allocate space for
? the employee’s sex
? any other essential information about the employee.
If at all possible, the cover should be pre-printed with clearly marked spaces where
these details can be entered. If pre-printing is not possible, staff must be given clear
instructions as to where on the file cover each piece of information should be written.
It is important to ensure that the layout of each file cover is consistent, so that staff
know where to look for any given piece of information. Much time can be wasted if
this is not done.
The file reference should be indicated both horizontally along the spine of the file and
vertically in the top right hand corner to facilitate retrieval. If it is handwritten, large
and bold characters should be used; small or badly written characters cannot be read
easily and may result in misfiling.
See Figure 9 for a sample file cover.
CLOSING FILES
As indicated in Organising and Controlling Current Records, it is good practice to
close any file which is more than 3 cm (1 in) thick and to open a continuation file, to
which new documentation can be added.
The procedure for closing personal files is as follows.
1. The closed file should be marked with an agreed wording, such as ‘PART 1 OF 2,
CLOSED ON [DATE]’.
2. All current data should be copied from the old file cover to the new one, and the new
file must also be distinguished by an agreed form of words, such as
‘CONTINUATION FILE, PART 2 OF 2’. Both parts will have the same file
reference and the two parts will be stored together. Removal of the closed file to
offsite storage is not recommended because it means that an employee’s complete
career history can only be obtained by retrieving files from two different locations.
3. If a further continuation file is opened at a later date, it will become ‘PART 3 OF 3’;
Part 2 must then be marked as closed, and the words ‘OF 3’ should be added to both
of the closed files.
These principles also apply to the closure of personnel policy files.
MANAGING PERSONNEL RECORDS
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