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Of all the documents that a company needs to store, disciplinary records—with their accompanying legal ramifications—are especially important to store responsibly. In particular, it’s necessary to give extra consideration to managing how long these documents are retained for and to ensure that they are destroyed according to schedule.
Do you want to know how to store disciplinary records? Then this is the blog for you. It will explain in detail how to keep, manage, and discard of disciplinary records.
Which records should your business keep?
The need for disciplinary records is an unfortunate but unavoidable fact of running a company. These records can include witness statements, emails and other communications, computer records, hearing notes, outcome letters, and any appeal paperwork.
Many employers struggle with the question of how, and for how long, they should keep these records on file. It’s useful to store expired records in case they are pertinent to future matters, for example if an employee repeats a behaviour after they have received a warning against it. However, the company must adhere to any policies stating that spent warnings will be struck from the record after a set period. For this reason, employers need clear procedures for the handling of expired disciplinary records.
It’s also important for cases such as the dismissal of an employee. In these scenarios, the company must maintain an accurate record of the reason they were dismissed, and that this record reflects what the employee was told. This is in case the employee brings a claim or requests a reference in the future.
How long should your business store disciplinary records?
Disciplinary and grievance records should be stored for a minimum of six months following termination of employment in case the employee brings a claim against the organisation. However, it is wise for companies to retain the records for longer than that, as employees have up to six years to file a breach of contract claim.
As with responsibly handling any data, it’s essential to have sensible limits on who can access disciplinary information. Once a matter has been resolved, the employee facing the issue must return or destroy their copy of the paperwork to keep a single, central record. This makes it harder for people without a legitimate reason to access the information. Finally, it’s important to properly destroy records after an appropriate time has elapsed, or a set time after the employee has left the company.
Storing your records
Dealing with the sheer volume of disciplinary records can be overwhelming, not to mention the importance of retaining them for future reference. If you need to make sure that these important files don’t get lost in a pile of unrelated papers, we have the answer: outsource your records management needs to a specialist.
Access Records Management, we’re experts at safely storing, shredding, and scanning documents. Contact us and skip the time and hassle of searching for somewhere safe and sensible to store your important records.
If you need professional advice on your document storage requirements, contact our document management experts today.
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