New York law will soon require employers to be more transparent with regard to information contained in employee personnel files.
Beginning Nov. 8, an employee must be notified if anything deemed negative is added to a personnel file, and the employee then will have the legal right to see everything contained in that file.
But even if nothing unfavorable is added, any employee is allowed to view their own file twice a year.
Following the lead of Massachusetts, state lawmakers believe employees have the right to know what employers place in a personnel file, especially since it can impact future employment opportunities within a current company or with another employer. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill on Sept. 9.
“The reason the legislature thinks this must be addressed is because of the way personnel files are used,” said Jared Cook, senior counsel in the Rochester office of Tully Rinckey PLLC. “They use your file when they make decisions about are we going to promote this person, are we going to discipline this person, are we going to give them a raise.
“If you as an employee think that there’s something in that file that is false or incorrect or unfairly puts you in a bad light, you, first, have a right to know, and second, have a right to respond to it.”
Sponsored by Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn), the bill is meant to create “an open and transparent dialogue between employees and their supervisors while providing some recourse for employees to remove knowingly...
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