HR Record Retention Requirements: Or, How Long Do We Have to Keep Those #$#%# Records ?

Yep, record retention is important, and the law specifies how long many HR records must be kept.

Do you know how long the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires your company to keep relevant records?

How about ADA? ADEA? FMLA? FLSA?

What did you guess? All the same time period?

Or, does it depend on the particular law and type of record we are talking about?

The laws differ from one another somewhat. And these are just the Federal anti-discrimination laws. State laws may also differ, I assume, but I did not check that out.

Answers follow next.

Under CRA of 1964 and ADA, records must be kept for one year from when the record was made or the action taken, whichever is later.

Under ADEA (age discrimination), certain records (e.g., employee age, rate of compensation) must be kept for three years, and other records for one year (e.g., resumes).

Under FLSA, certain records must be kept for three years (e.g., rates of pay) and other records must be kept for two years (e.g., work and time schedules).

Under FMLA,the basic record retention period is three years.

Sound complicated? It is!

Go to HRHero.com’s brief but useful article on record retention for the major Federal discrimination laws.

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