Human Resource Blog

Employee records retention original vs. faxed forms

	HR Management
Confidential Employee Folder Confidential Employee Medical Folder Job File Worksheet Folder Daily EEO Applicant Flow Log Workplace Information Sheets Request to Inspect Personnel Files

What are the legal ramifications (if any) regarding original signed forms versus faxed signed forms? By maintaining both, we are doubling our work and storage loads.

It appears electronic signatures are becoming more and more acceptable. What are the guidelines for electronic forms?

Electronic signatures are becoming more accepted. In many cases, even real estate contracts are accepted with a faxed signature. While the issue of faxed or electronic copies of HR documents has seldom been tried in court, they are more commonly being accepted.  One option you might consider to save space is scanning all documents and saving them electronically. A recent directive from the Department of Homeland Security, for example, approves the use of scanned copies — including signatures — for the federal I-9 Immigration Control forms. If they’re good enough for the DHS, they should be good enough for most other purposes. One thing does have us wondering, though — if you’re filing the original documents, why would you also need to file the faxed copies?