In-line with the Turkish Labour Code No. 4857, employers are obliged to keep a personnel file for each and every of employee they employ.
The statute of limitations regarding the legal entitlements of workplace employees are considered as the retention periods of files and documents. In this respect, personnel documents should be kept in accordance with the statute of limitations specified in labor and social security legislation.
Since the reasonable justification for storing personal data disappears after these periods, information and documents must be destroyed or anonymized.
As a general rule, unnecessary and purposeless documents and information should not be taken or kept in the personnel file. Especiall, uncessary and purposeless information such as religion, sexual orientation, cult, social group affiliation etc. should not be kept in the personnel files.
According to the Turkish Labour Legislation, the statute of limitations for wage receivables is five years. In order to take precautions to protect the company in the workplace regarding personnel, payrolls must be signed and kept in personnel files for five years, which is the legal statute of limitations.
Since losing cases due to the signature on the payroll will cause problems, it is necessary to have the payrolls signed and to keep the signed payrolls. Especially if the main employers working with subcontractors do not have signed payrolls and documents due to their joint and several responsibilities, companies will experience more negative effects during the statute of limitations.
The statue of limitations has been reduced from ten to five years, provided that it arises from the employment contract, whichever law it is subject to. Just like wage slips/payrolls, documents regarding payments such as annual leave pay, severance pay, notice pay, bad faith compensation and discrimination compensation must be kept for five years.
On the other hand, according to the Turkish Social Insurance Law, employers or business owners must keep social security-related workplace books, records and documents for ten years, starting from the beginning of the year following the relevant year. In addition, when necessary, they must submit this information and documents within fifteen days if requested by the Social Security Institution. Accordingly, information and documents regarding the social security of employees must be kept in the personnel file for ten years.
