Karina B. Sterman, Esq., is a partner in Greenberg Glusker’s litigation and employment law groups.
In today’s hybrid workplaces, where conversations unfold across Slack threads and performance feedback arrives via email, personnel records are no longer confined to filing cabinets or even designated HRIS platforms.
Yet too many employers still treat personnel files as static collections of paper documents and forms, ignoring the vast — and often legally relevant — trail left in digital formats.
This oversight isn’t just an administrative gap; it’s a compliance risk. California law, for example, gives employees the right to inspect or obtain copies of their personnel records upon request. If your HR team can’t produce key performance-related documents because they lived in a deleted email account or were wiped along with a departing employee’s laptop, your organization could face serious legal consequences.
As technology continues to redefine how workplaces communicate and document employee behavior, HR professionals must recalibrate their recordkeeping strategies accordingly. Preserving the digital side of the personnel file isn’t just a best practice — it’s fast becoming a legal imperative.
Interpretations of the term “personnel record” can vary. In California, it means any documents used to determine an employee’s qualifications for employment, promotion, additional compensation, termination or disciplinary action.
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