Can an employer refuse or restrict access to an employee's personnel file? i.e.. Refuse copies of documents w/in that file.

What type of business and how many employees?

Hello charit:

Sure. You have no right to inspect files. They are NOT public documents.

excon

Construction industry with < 100 employees.

Personnel files are the property of the company, not the employee.

What documents are you looking for?

If this were a state or county government or even a school district you would have access rights. Not so with a private company. What is the underlying question here for you?

I gave the employee a copy of a document when he asked. I'm not sure my superiors would approve. I'm trying to find out if I did the right thing.

That probably is going to depend on what that document was and what standard of security your superiors expect from you. You need to know what they expect if you want to work in the HR arena.

I know that for example there are often several records, First there is the standard personel file, but medical records have to be keep separate, since not all management have equal access to both records. And then often line management keeps notes and/or items like production records and more.

But unless you have or had the authority to give out this info, it should not have been without asking the director of HR.

And in many there are some min payment for copy costs.

Which state are you in. Some state laws have different requirements than others.

Shirley