We get a lot of questions about accessing company personnel files, and it’s always from employees who think there’s something negative in there or something that shouldn’t be in there at all. The problem is that your personnel file doesn’t belong to you; that’s the property of the company. Companies can set policies to determine who gets to see the personnel file and under what circumstances.

If there is something in there that may not be all to your liking, we may not be able to get to it. The one thing we can do is, if we have grounds to file suit on some basis, we can demand an entire copy of your personnel file in discovery and see it that way. Otherwise, if the company says you don’t see it, you don’t see it.