Before you think about engagement surveys or appraisal frameworks, check whether these eight documents exist and are signed. Most businesses are missing at least three.
When we start an HR audit, the first thing we ask for is a folder. Not a system, not a dashboard — a folder, digital or physical, with eight documents in it. Most businesses under a hundred people are missing at least three of them, and usually do not realise it until something goes wrong.
1. Appointment letter
Signed, dated, and matching what the person actually does. An appointment letter that describes a role the employee moved out of two years ago is worse than useless in a dispute.
2. Employee handbook or policy manual
One document that answers the everyday questions: leave, attendance, working hours, reimbursement, notice. If managers are answering these from memory, they are answering them differently.
3. POSH policy and committee record
Any workplace with ten or more employees needs a policy under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, a constituted Internal Committee, and a record of the annual filing. This is the single most common gap we find.
4. Attendance and leave records
Whatever system you use, it needs to produce a defensible record. A WhatsApp group is not a record.
5. Salary structure and payslips
A documented structure — basic, allowances, deductions — applied consistently, with payslips issued every month.
6. Statutory registrations and returns
PF, ESIC, professional tax and gratuity, as applicable to your headcount and state. Registration is half the job; filing on time is the other half.
7. Performance review records
Written, signed and kept. If you ever need to act on performance, the paper trail is the difference between a clean exit and a claim.
8. Exit documentation
Resignation acceptance, handover note, full and final settlement, and a relieving letter. Incomplete exits create liabilities that surface years later.
None of this is complicated. It is simply work nobody has been given ownership of. Start by checking which of the eight you have — that alone will tell you where to begin.