Federal employees have a number of things to mark on their calendar. Many Federal employees will be retiring by this year’s end or early next year. For these employees, reviewing of the Official Personnel Folder should have been done. The folder which is now electronic in most agencies is a record of an employee work history. The folder shows health care coverage and changes in coverage, life insurance options, service computation dates, positions, titles, series and grades held by the employee and many other demographics.
There are times when the recorded information may have errors or mistakes. Marking a time on your calendar each year to review your folder, will prevent what could be costly mistakes in the future. I think it would be safe to say that a huge number of Federal employees never review their personnel folders and don’t really know what is in them. There are guidelines that govern the filings in personnel folders. There are permanent and non-permanent items found in the folder. There is a purpose for filings on the right-hand size of the folder and a purpose for filings on the left-hand side of the folder.
Personnel folders need to be purged for non-permanent materials. One thing employees should be aware of is infractions and how long certain infractions can remain in your folder. If you don’t know, then you can say what is appropriate and what is not. Many employees may not have infractions, but need to be astutely aware of leave records and proper accrual rates, salary increases and when they occurred , in addition to your benefits profile.
There are many things that should be marked on your calendar that are important to staying on contract during your active employment years and during retirement. In the next article we will list some of the items that should be marked on your calendar annually.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Dianna Tafazoli
