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Dear Donna

Donna Cardillo, RN, well-known career guru and president of Cardillo & Associates, is a speaker, entrepreneur, humorist, and master of the career universe. She uses her expertise to help you polish your rough edges and shine in your career.

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Cardillo brings more than 20 years of clinical, management, and business experience to her new role. She is the top-rated speaker at Nursing Spectrum Career Fairs and takes a down-to-earth approach to career advice. Cardillo has appeared on television and radio and written many articles on career and professional development topics. Most recently, Cardillo was a career consultant with monster.com, but she left that position to assume her exclusive Dear Donna! relationship with Nursing Spectrum/NurseWeek.

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Can HR remove or add items to your file after you have resigned from a company?
Wednesday November 19, 2008
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Question:

Dear Donna,

I applied for a position at a hospital I worked at about 12 years ago. I worked there for about nine years, and I had some ups and downs. I had problems with a nurse manager who acted as the interim between the four nurse managers who were let go during those years. I was told I was rehireable but “unfavorable.”

I requested my personnel file. When I reviewed it, I noticed that several of the positive events that occurred as well letters of gratitude from patients, physicians, and the committees I was involved in were not in my records. I have kept all positive and negative letters from my 30-plus years of nursing. According to my records, the positive letters were cc’ed to human resources. So I do not think they were ever in my file. I think HR removed them to tarnish my history. Can HR remove or add items to your file after you have resigned from a company? Should I bring up this issue about my past file to the HR current department or just let it go?

My peers tell me several other nurses have gotten the same go-around as I have. The term “blackballed” has came up in several conversations.

Dee



Dear Donna replies:

Dear Dee,

I consulted a human resource exert on this. Here’s what he had to say:

“State laws govern which documents are required to be part of the personnel file. In general, letters of gratitude and other ‘unofficial’ documents are not kept in the personnel file. The file usually contains information directly related to employment and signed by the employee; some examples include employment application, benefit paperwork, performance evaluations, disciplinary actions, and personnel change forms (raises, transfers, promotions, etc.). The nurse should contact the organization’s human resources department if she believes that her file has been tampered with.

“The nurse should take copies of the positive letters from patients and family members with her to job interviews. Those documents might help her to make a favorable impression on potential employers.

“I am not aware of any formal system of ‘blackballing’ in the healthcare community.”

It is difficult to comment on the employment situation without knowing what had transpired previously. But if your status for rehire is “unfavorable,” that would give any employer pause when considering rehire. All this may have nothing to do with what is or is not in your file, so I would not necessarily make that an issue. Either use your contacts on the inside to vouch for you and get a second chance, and/or let human resources know why the situation would be different this time if they rehire you, or just move on.

Best wishes,
Donna



Donna Cardillo, RN, MA, well-known career guru, is Nursing Spectrum/NurseWeek’s “Dear Donna” and author of Your First Year as a Nurse: Making the Transition from Total Novice to Successful Professional and The ULTIMATE Career Guide for Nurses: Practical Advice for Thriving at Every Stage of Your Career. Information about the books is available at www.nurse.com/CE/7010 and www.nurse.com/CE/7250, respectively. To ask Donna your question, go to www.nurse.com/asktheexperts/deardonna. Find a “Dear Donna” seminar near you: Call (800) 866-0919 or visit http://events.nursingspectrum.com/Seminar.



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