After reviews are given what sort of documents do you hold on to? Or, more specifically, do you hold on to all of your supporting documentation after the reveiw was given or just the actual reveiw? The reason I ask is that my file drawer with employee info is beginning to overflow and I need to cut back on what I am holding on to. Any suggestions.
Brad
review documents after the reveiw
"Keep everything" is rarely a good document management system.
For each type of document, ask yourself what would happen if you wanted the document and it wasn't available. If the answer is not grave and doesn't cost money - shred it / toss it.
Additionally, has that document been superseded by later documents?
Even for documents you keep, you should probably have a disposal date on it. The only personnel document that should always be kept are job initiation document (resumes, applications, copies of option grants, etc), annual performance reviews, formal statements such as commendations or warnings and compensation changes. Did I miss something?
Everything else can go. You don't need notes from a meeting you had two years ago. If you think you need notes from a meeting, write at the top "Dispose after DD-Mon-YYYY" where the date is 6 months in the future. When you come across the document, if its after the date, toss it.
Brian
review documents after the reveiw
Brian,
I like the idea of putting a date 6 months in the future for disposal. I am going to start using that today. It will force me to catagorize documents on the spot. Thanks for the advice.
Brad
review documents after the reveiw
I keep ongoing O3 notes in a 3 ring binder. As time goes by I just go to the back of the binder and pull out the oldest notes. It's pretty easy to keep a year or two in here without any kind of inconvenience.
Then just use file tabs to keep the quarterly / annual review in the same folder. Easy Peasy.
Re: review documents after the reveiw
[quote="bradleymewes"]After reviews are given what sort of documents do you hold on to?
Brad[/quote]
O3 Notes in composition notebooks. Review docs (paper) are filed with HR. I retain scanned PDFs. When directs update me as part of mid-year or annual reviews I retain the attached files in email folders.
My goal is to be as close to paperless as possible while satisfying HR.
tlhausmann
review documents after the reveiw
tlhausmann,
Do you find going paperless inhibits your ability to quickly review documents at a later date? What I have found is that the more documents I accumulate on my computer the longer it takes me to compile the particular documents at a later date to review them. I do like the idea of scanning large documents to a PDF however, and will have to experement with that.
brad
On nearly paperlesss...
[quote="bradleymewes"]tlhausmann,
Do you find going paperless inhibits your ability to quickly review documents at a later date? What I have found is that the more documents I accumulate on my computer the longer it takes me to compile the particular documents at a later date to review them. I do like the idea of scanning large documents to a PDF however, and will have to experiment with that.
brad[/quote]
I use two different desktop indexing tools and depending on the nature of the search one is better than the other. I also keep the "Documents" folder pretty organized. Scanned copies of my handwritten meeting notes are (obviously) not readily indexed but an effective file naming scheme keeps things in order.
After so many years in the workforce I discovered my paper files, while useful for reference, simply became too bulky. A scanned PDF is easily stored and viewable on a laptop.