Managing Personnel Records - International Records Management ...

TYPICAL PROBLEMS WITH MANAGING
PERSONNEL RECORDS
Personnel records can be very complex to manage.
Following are typical problems that may be encountered.
? Often there are no effective procedures for removing inactive personnel records
from the system or destroying them. Personnel records must be kept for a long
time in order to protect the rights of individuals, and destruction should be
approached with caution. However, in many countries no personnel records have
been destroyed, despite the fact that early records may be more than a century old.
? It is not uncommon to find that active personnel records and records relating to
ex-employees are stored together. This wastes valuable office space. More
significantly, it creates increasing difficulties in retrieving current files when they
are needed.
? Existing systems tend to create multiple copies of many of the documents
involved in personnel management, often unnecessarily. This makes it
increasingly difficult to retrieve required documents. Moreover, despite the
quantity of paper generated, the personal files of civil servants tend to be
incomplete.
? Frequently there are no widely accepted conventions relating to the order in which
personal names are written or spelled. This causes filing and retrieval problems.
? Personnel records should provide a valuable source of accurate data for auditing
computerised payroll systems, but this is rarely possible because records are not
kept systematically.
? Despite the requirement for confidentiality and security, often the records are
inadequately protected.
? Even where personnel files are held centrally, such as in the office of the head of
civil service, it is normal for ministries and departments to create their own files.
Without clear policies or procedures on the management of these files, it is not
uncommon to find that as civil servants are transferred from one ministry or
department to another, the files do not travel with them. This results in multiple
files, both open and closed, on any civil servant.
? Personnel records need to be retained over a long period, generally well beyond
the time the staff reach retirement age. The existence of multiple files relating to
the same employee makes it difficult to determine which records should be kept.
MANAGING PERSONNEL RECORDS
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