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That's why they call them that. Check the contract you sign when you first join a company if you have any questions. I'm sure it specifies that all records the company compiles on you become their property forever.

But once again, this is a legal issue. If you have a legal question, you should ask an attorney, not a bunch of IT experts. ^_^

There are any number of reasons why an employer needs to keep this information for reasonably benign purposes. Here are some hypotheticals, just off the top of my head...

-Your employer needs an address to send your last check to.
-If you elect to take COBRA to extend your benefits, they need to pass your information to the administrator.
-If you were involved in any accidents at work, they need to keep track of that for mandatory annual reporting to OSHA.
-Your employer needs this information to create and mail your W-2 to you, or else you can't do your taxes.
-If your new employer calls to verify your dates of employment or your primary responsibilities, they need to have some info to go on.
-I would think that a company would have to keep this info around for auditing purposes and staffing statistics.
-If you were involved in any incident, like the earlier poster mentioned, that has any possibility of becoming litigious, they need to keep that information.
-I imagine that they need to keep your dates of employment for the insurance company in case you had any recent claims.
-Any retirement benefit information needs to be tracked in case you cash out now or try to access it later. Social security, 401K, etc.
-If you have any leave accumulated that you want paid out at your separation, I would imagine that they need to keep track of that, too.
-If you file for unemployment after your separation, the unemployment office would be required to contact your employer to verify dates of employment, pay rate, SSN in order to cut you a check, etc. I would imagine that, if that information doesn't exist, that the benefits would not be as forthcoming.

I have never heard of anyone being able to take the sole originals of their information when they left. I understand the concern with identity theft, but this is one area of exposure that cannot really be erased in any practical way.

It should not be acceptable for a company to retain ANY personl identification (SS#, bank account info etc.)after you leave. You performance record etc. should be irrellevant.

If you have a prospective employer call for a reference they could always say, 'we don't have any records of his performance here', might not be in your best interests. But WHY anyone would be so paranoid as to request the company's file on them is what baffles me. I simply don't see what security measure this is at all, the company can't rip off your bank account, that is WAY to traceable.

Many companies have clear policies about how long records are kept and for what purpose, if yours doesn't then perhaps suggest writing one.

I STILL don't see WHY anyone would want to recover an employers records. Personal information should be destroyed or deemed worthless by the company, after they have finished all your taxation and separation paperwork, it is no use to them and most definitely no use to YOU after you leave.

I think the person you are referring to was probably quite pissed off and simply wanted to be a knob. It has no relevance or meaning to it at all, just a petty little thing to be a prick about when leaving.

Sorry, I still don't see the horror behind it.


Now if an employee wants a record of his performance ratings and evaluations, this could and should be copied and provided upon request, then again, performance evaluations should always be given to the employee after the evaluation is conducted, then you just need to hang on to your paperwork.

Sounds petty and useless to me.

All evidence of "who" you were and what you did while you were in that company is (or should be) included in your personnel record.

However, though this is information on you, it BELONGS to your company.

But, you have the legal right to have copies of everything that is contained in that personnel record. If you request the copies, and they refuse to provide them, I would contact a lawyer who should be able to get them for you relatively quickly with a single phone call.

That's why I like throwing questions out on TR, like this one -- I got a lot of good responses and information back. Thanks all.

I personally am not affected by this, I have no issues with my employer regarding keeping my file or not..I was exercising my curiousity based on what I've seen go down here with others. Then I was just trying to play a bit of Devil's Advocate -- which I do often.

Again thanks all.