For many years we have stressed the importance of annual performance reviews for your employees and the inclusion of these reports in employee personnel files. If you have not yet scheduled your performance reviews for 2013 you should try to schedule them as soon as possible. We find that performance reviews are an excellent time to discuss an employee’s job description, the employee’s performance of the duties, those items that need improvement, and the status of future salary increases and available benefits, such as health care and retirement accounts, which are funded in part or totally by the employer.
Performance reviews should be made by an individual authorized by your office and experienced in human resources, in the presence of a witness. At the conclusion of the performance review, all of the items which were discussed at the review should be reduced to writing and the employee should be asked to sign the document which indicates the matters which were discussed, including an outline of the items that need improvement and any other matter that you wish to include as a summary in the report. Please note that it is important to tell the employee that signing the document does not necessarily mean that the employee agrees with the positions taken in the report, but only that these were the matters that were discussed. When responding to unemployment claims, if an employer fails to produce a proper personnel file which describes the historical manner in which the employee performed his/her job duties and which describes the employee’s failure to follow office policies, it becomes very difficult to avoid payment of unemployment compensation, even if the employee was discharged for cause. Without a proper personnel file, it is also extremely difficult to defend against a case of an employee who asserts that he/she was fired as a result of discriminatory practices by the employer.
Simply meeting with employees annually will hopefully lead to better employees and will protect you against potential future claims.
