The Human Resource department provides a number of different services to employees. If this department functions properly, it can boost employee satisfaction throughout the spectrum of departments of a company and also strengthen business operations. However, proper functioning revolves around proper HR documentation of employment events for each and every employee. These documents pertain to legal and government mandated elements like leave, medical, etc., company policies and practices, best human resource practices, and events pertaining to each and every employee. So what happens if documentation is not proper? Let’s see.
Disciplinary Actions
Employees facing disciplinary issues for bad behavior, inefficiency or covert sexual approaches to female employees need to be disciplined. However, the management needs to have documents pertaining to each individual event that proves that the employee had resorted to something that is unbecoming of him as an employee of the company. In absence of proper documentation, the management cannot carry out a proper investigation and conduct a proper enquiry. In such circumstances, the management may not be able to resort to disciplinary actions or face legal problems in doing so.
Strategic Management
Strategic management of human resources revolves around the knowledge of how human capital affects organizational success. However, such knowledge is incumbent upon documents showing various employee engagement issues around every department of the company. This includes efficiency, behavior and much more.
Analyzing Benefits
Proper analysis of benefits given to employees can bring down costs associated with attrition, hiring and training workers. Existing employees are important for organizations since they are equipped with the required skills and expertise. However, analysing the benefits demands comprehensive research on per employee turnover, skills, opportunities outside the organization, etc. This is where HR documentation is essential.
Termination, Promotion or Pay Rise
HR documentation is a huge exercise. It includes documents about actions of individual employees, discussions held with them, incidents that may have taken place during performance coaching, policy violations by employees, disciplinary actions faced, rewards and recognition earned, investigations faced by them and the outcome of such investigations, failure to accomplish goals, performance evaluation, etc. These records allow employers to preserve documents about happenings around an employee or employees during an event or events. This has a strong bearing on actions such as promotion, pay raise, disciplinary actions, terminations, etc.
Minimizing Liability Issues
Meticulous documentation can minimize organizational exposure to liability issues such as issues regarding grant of leave, FMLA, termination, etc. They can help to identify and investigate workplace issues that have the potential to embroil the organization in legal matters. This is most significant in case of allegations pertaining to violation of anti-discrimination and harassment laws, not granting leave, etc.
Conclusion
HR Documentation need not always be negative. Indeed, it does not need to be positive or negative. It just needs to be factual, not judgmental. It should describe an event or events as they occur. It should also mention the steps taken during the incidences like taking disciplinary action or employee recognition. Indeed, this shows that HR documentation is essential for an organization’s own health.
