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With year-end and first-of-the-year goals out of the way and a lull between holidays, there\u2019s no better time for some HR spring cleaning. As many experts in tidying up and clearing clutter will tell you, a clean space with room for movement (both physical and psychological) will boost productivity and just make people feel better.<\/p>\n
You may be low on time, or you might feel ready to embrace some serious reorganization. Depending on the number of hours available, consider mixing and matching the following spring-cleaning options, from quickest to most comprehensive.<\/p>\n
Ensure that pathways are clear and free of tripping or falling hazards. This may mean finding storage for unused furniture, breaking down boxes, or finding a system to organize supplies.<\/p>\n
Ask them to recycle or shred documents they no longer need, give their filing cabinet or desk drawers a once-over, clean up unruly cables, and wipe everything down.<\/p>\n
Start tackling it from most to least important. This might include a broken lock on a bathroom door, dirty walls, carpet stains, broken office chairs, fraying uniforms, mismatched name tags, or malfunctioning computer equipment.<\/p>\n
Often in the day-to-day rush, a document will just get stuffed into the middle of a file. Take time to go through and file documents in the right places, whether that\u2019s a specific section of the file a document is already in or a different file entirely. A little maintenance on a regular basis can go a long way, especially if you receive an unexpected request for documentation, whether from a former employee, an attorney, or the state or federal Department of Labor. Here is the organization system that we recommend:<\/p>\n
Keep all Form I-9s in a separate master file or three-ring binder.<\/p>\n
This file should contain everything related to an employee\u2019s medical history, including health insurance enrollment forms. It\u2019s important to separate this file because you cannot legally base personnel decisions, such as who gets promoted and who doesn\u2019t, on an individual\u2019s medical history. In addition, various privacy laws and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) require that you keep confidential employee medical records separate from basic personnel files. The retention period will depend on the type of record.<\/p>\n
This file should contain items that were a factor in the employee\u2019s hiring and employment in addition to items that will have any impact on their employment in the future. This includes performance reviews and corrective action records.<\/p>\n
This file should contain the employee\u2019s W-4 and any other payroll-related documents containing the employee\u2019s SSN or other protected information, including garnishments.<\/p>\n
Keep a file for any employee who is injured while on the job. This file should contain workers\u2019 compensation claim records and injury reports, and any additional medical records pertaining to the injury. It\u2019s okay to start this file only if an employee suffers an injury on the job.<\/p>\n
These files should be kept in a secure location that is only accessible to those in the HR function or with a legitimate need to review the information \u2014 for instance, in locked cabinets in a locked HR office. This information can be stored electronically if that makes more sense for your business. Just ensure that it\u2019s backed up to prevent data loss, and well-secured.<\/p>\n
Looking for other helpful HR tips, guides, templates, and more? GTM offers two levels of HR services<\/a> – take a look and see what’s right for you, then contact us<\/a> with any questions, or request a free quote<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With early-year goals out of the way, there\u2019s no better time for some HR spring cleaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[19,17,42],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-6493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consulting-services","tag-human-resources","tag-record-keeping","tag-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6493"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6497,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6493\/revisions\/6497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6493"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=6493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}