If an employer has lost his work record, what should he do?

Often employees and employers have a question: what to do if you have lost your work book? We answer: it is necessary to find out whose fault this happened and launch a mechanism for restoring the form. Detailed instructions are in the material.

The Labor Code defines the obligation of individuals, when applying for a job, to present the original work book to the employer. This document collects information about the employee, his previous places of work and the grounds for termination of employment agreements. In this regard, the question: what to do if the work book is lost by the employee is by no means idle

Consequences of losing a work book

A work record book, like any paper document, can be lost or irretrievably damaged.
This does not mean at all that in such a situation the employee loses all information about his work experience. The law regulates the possibility of issuing a duplicate, and the instructions for filling out indicate how to restore entries in the work book if lost or damaged. It is quite possible to restore this important document. Another thing is that sometimes it is quite difficult. IMPORTANT!

From 09/01/2021, new Rules for maintaining and storing work books, producing forms and providing them to employers, approved by Order of the Ministry of Labor No. 320n dated 05/19/2021, are in effect. Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated April 16, 2003 No. 225, which approved the previously existing rules, has become invalid.

The original document on experience cannot be restored, but its owner has the right to receive a duplicate, which will include all or almost all the information that was in the original. For those who have been working since 2000, there is no question of how to restore length of service if a work record book is lost - all information about it is stored in the Pension Fund, where information for assigning a pension is generated even before the introduction of electronic work records (ELR). With the introduction of the ETC, the problem of data recovery is losing relevance, but is still in demand among those who decide to save paper documents.

What if the employee himself lost the book?

Many workers think that after losing a document they can simply start from scratch and get a new one. But do not forget that the length of service is lost, and this guarantees a significant reduction in the pension. If, for example, a thirty-year-old employee has an empty work book when he is hired, this will affect future cooperation. They will be more willing to hire a person who can show their documented career achievements over the entire period.

This is important to know: Application for storage of a work record book with an employer

If you lose your work book during your first work experience, if there is only one entry indicating 3 months of experience, you can get a new one without worrying about the length of service. Employees are not legally obligated to prepare duplicates of lost employment documents. But Article 65 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation states that if a citizen who goes to work does not have a book due to its loss, damage, or another, the employer must, after receiving a written application from the employee with specified reasoned reasons, begin processing new documentation.

If a document indicating more than 15 years of experience with awards has been lost, the employee can submit a statement of loss to the management at the place of last employment. The employer issues a duplicate labor document for the employee no later than 15 working days from the date of filing the petition. This issue is regulated by the Decree “On Work Books”.

The employee must submit an application to the HR department. The application indicates a request to restore the document and describes the reasons for the loss. In addition to the application, the following documentation is submitted:

• An order stating that the person was hired or dismissed from it (if any);
• a copy of the employment document certified by a notary (if available);
• if available, old work books, contracts with the employer;
• payroll statements in the form of copies, if available;
• pension insurance statement.

The picture shows a sample application for the issuance of a duplicate work book:

If the company is small or the relationship with management is positive, the application is allowed to be submitted not by HR officers, but by the employer. If there are doubts about the employer and his lawful actions, the application is sent via registered mail with the described attachments and a notification that the document has been delivered. In this case, it will be possible to challenge the delay in issuing a duplicate.

In the process of restoring records of a labor document, entries are made regarding the restoration of the length of work experience. To confirm this experience, links to relevant documents are provided. But they will not fully describe each period of work and developments. Work experience is described by a sum indicating the total number of years and months without division into periods, and positions for each workplace will not be designated.

Reference! If it is not possible to present documents that will reliably confirm the length of service, only information confirmed by documents is included in the duplicate. For this purpose, it is important to prepare a copy of the book certified by a notary. If the employee did not have time to make a copy, in order to maintain his seniority, he must contact his former places of work to obtain extracts from his personal archive, copies of employment agreements, and orders for obtaining a job.

Legislative norms for restoring information about experience

The possibility of restoring a book is determined by the rules for its maintenance and storage, but the procedure for entering information into a duplicate and the requirements for its execution are given in the Instructions for filling out the Labor Code, approved by a new order of the Ministry of Labor. This legal act is the alpha and omega both for personnel workers and various government bodies, and for a person who does not know what to do if his work book is lost, but he needs to get a job - the Labor Code of the Russian Federation in this case there are no recommendations does not give.

Compensation payment processing

The documents drawn up by the employer to pay compensation for the delay in issuing a work book vary depending on the basis.
Let's look at them. 1. By court decision. As soon as the employer has a court decision on the payment of compensation, the employer must issue an order for its payment. Let's give an example of an order.

Since, in the event of a delay in the issuance of the book, the date of dismissal of the employee changes, the employer will have to issue another order (instruction) - about the new day of dismissal, and also make an entry in the work book.
The previously made entry on termination of the employment contract is considered invalid. This is stated in paragraph. 4 clause 35 of the Rules for maintaining and storing work books 2. At the request of a former employee. It is not at all necessary to wait for a court decision - everything can be resolved peacefully. It is possible that the employee will apply for compensation, and the employer will satisfy it or refuse it. In the latter case, most likely, the former employee will go to court. So, in the case of a “pre-trial” settlement of the issue, the employer must receive from the dismissed person a statement requesting payment of compensation for the delay in issuing the work book, on the basis of which (if agreed) an order is issued.

In order to pay compensation, so to speak, voluntarily, the employer needs to calculate the period of forced absence caused by the delay in issuing the book. This period is calculated from the day following the day when the employer should have issued the work certificate or sent a notice of the need to receive it, until the day the dismissed person received the book or sent him a notice.

Example

A.I. Volkova was dismissed at her own request on 10/12/2015. On the day of her dismissal, she did not receive a work book. Work schedule: five-day work week. The work permit was issued on November 19, 2015. For what period is compensation due if A. I. Volkova’s average daily earnings on the day of dismissal was 780 rubles. 32 kopecks?

Let's determine the number of working days to be paid. Compensation for A.I. Volkova is due for the period from 10/13/2015 to 11/19/2015 - 27 working days. The amount of compensation for the delay in issuing a work book in this case will be 21,068.64 rubles. (RUB 780.32 x 27 working days).

Let us focus on one point: the employee himself may refuse to receive a work book on the day of dismissal. In this case, we recommend that the employer draw up an appropriate report and present it to the dismissed person for review. If he refuses to read the report, draw up another one confirming this fact. Mandatory after drawing up acts in accordance with the requirements of Art. 84.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, send a notice of the need to appear for a work book by mail. For what? We'll tell you a little later.

For your information

Work books and their duplicates, which employees did not receive upon dismissal, must be kept by the employer until required (clause 43 of the Rules for maintaining and storing work books). The shelf life of work records is 75 years (Order of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation dated August 25, 2010 No. 558 “On approval of the List of standard management archival documents generated in the course of the activities of state bodies, local governments and organizations, indicating storage periods”).

Why is it necessary to restore the shopping center?

A document containing records of a citizen’s work experience is stored in the organization where he is employed. According to the law, the TC is kept in the hands of only unemployed citizens, who will have to restore it themselves in the event of damage or loss. A person working remotely has the right to keep TC at home if he has agreed on this with the management of an organization located in another city or even region.

What happens to this document? It can:

• lose the employee himself;
• lose the organization's HR department;
• lose a government body or service (for example, the Pension Fund);
• render any person unusable as a result of mechanical or other damage.

In addition, documents are lost or damaged as a result of a mass emergency. This situation is separately regulated by law, and restoring the Labor Code in such a situation is often much easier than in an individual case. In any case, the law directly states whether it is necessary to restore a work book if lost - yes, since this is the main document for employment.

IMPORTANT!

An alternative is to switch to an electronic form of storing information about experience, which is available to anyone at any time.

When an employer is released from liability for delay

The Labor Code stipulates that in some cases the employer is not responsible for the delay in issuing a work book.
In particular, part 6 of Art. 84.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation establishes two such cases: 1. If on the day of termination of the employment contract it is impossible to issue a work book to the employee. For example, he is absent from work or refuses to receive a book. In this case, the employer is obliged to send him a notice of the need to appear for a work book or agree to send it by mail. From the date of sending the notice, the employer is released from liability for the delay in issuing the work permit.

Let us note that the notification of the need to appear for a work book or to agree to send it by mail is an important document: you should not send a book by mail without the employee’s written consent to do so. Thus, compensation was recovered from the employer for the delay in issuing a work book, since it was not issued to the employee on the day of dismissal and without obtaining written consent from him, as required by Art. 84.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, it was sent by mail. The employer did not have evidence of issuing a work book to the employee upon dismissal, including against signature in the manner established by clause 41 of the Rules for maintaining and storing work books. As a result, the plaintiff’s demands for recovery of average earnings during the delay of the work book were satisfied (Appeal ruling of the Voronezh Regional Court dated July 29, 2014 No. 33‑3589).

2. If the last day of work does not coincide with the day of registration of termination of employment relations upon dismissal of an employee on the basis provided for in paragraphs. “a” clause 6, part 1, art. 81 (for absenteeism) or clause 4, part 1, art. 83 (conviction of an employee to punishment that precludes the continuation of previous work) of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, as well as upon dismissal of a woman whose employment contract was extended until the end of pregnancy or until the end of maternity leave in accordance with Part 2 of Art. 261 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. In these cases, upon a written request from an employee who has not received a work book after dismissal, the employer is obliged to issue it no later than three working days from the date of such request.

An employer's actions when hiring a new employee without a technical qualification

A man came to get a job who had lost his work book, and he didn’t know how to restore it. If the employer is not interested in information about his previous places of work, then he has the right not to send such an applicant to restore the information himself, but to accept him immediately with the execution of a new document. To do this, the applicant will have to write a statement stating that he has not had a TC before. In this case, restoration will not occur. In fact, such an employee will need information about the length of service in the future to apply for a pension, and he will still have to make a duplicate for himself and apply to the Pension Fund to restore the length of service. The PFR regulations say how to restore your work book through State Services - write an application for obtaining the necessary data in your personal account on the portal. The request will be sent to the Pension Fund for processing.

IMPORTANT!

Please note that neither the State Services nor the Pension Fund of Russia issues duplicates of the Labor Code. They only provide information about length of service and places of work from the database. To create a new form, you need an employer - former or current.

If the new employee nevertheless brought a workbook, but it turned out to be damaged, and it is impossible to maintain it further, then the employer will independently create a duplicate, thereby starting the restoration procedure, and transfer into it all possible information about the work from the old book.

Was the book lost?

There are situations when an employee of the HR department looks for a work book for a long time and worries about it, but it is found after some time.

This is not always the fault of the HR manager or another company employee. The book is quite likely to end up in the employee’s home, and the personnel officer may not even think about checking the employee’s personal file, where there is a receipt stating that he temporarily took it, for example, in order to apply for a pension.

First of all, it is recommended to give the HR department a few days to search for:

• You need to collect as much information about the book as possible. In the book of accounting and movements of work books, you can see the date and its number upon admission, and look at the books of other employees who got a job on that day.
• It is also recommended to look into the employee’s personal file; perhaps there is his receipt stating that he temporarily took the document or did not have it in his hands at the time of hiring (if it was lost or the first appointment, the personnel officer could simply forget to draw up the document), etc. d.
• It is necessary to find out whether the employee changed his last name before joining the company or already while working in it, and check whether the work book is in the safe under the old last name.

The work book was lost by the employee

When a person is employed, his personnel documentation is stored in the organization, and the personnel officer is responsible for it. However, by virtue of the provisions of Article 62 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, a citizen has the right to ask for a work book to be issued to him in order to apply for a pension and apply to the Pension Fund. In addition, sometimes HR specialists themselves violate instructions and hand out technical documents at personal request for other matters, violating the instructions. In such situations, citizens lose documents or render them unusable. Here is an algorithm for what to do if the work book is damaged or lost:

• the person is obliged to immediately notify his management about this;
• write an application for data recovery and issuance of a duplicate;
• the employer reviews the application and issues a duplicate within 15 days.

The most important point in this process is to complete this application correctly. This does not present any difficulties, since the application is written in free text form addressed to the head of the employer’s organization. Here is an example text:

The simplest situation arises if such an employee did not work anywhere else before joining the company. In this case, the information will be restored to him and a duplicate will be issued based on the original data that the HR department has at its disposal. Then the work record is restored according to the following algorithm:

Step 1. A person pays for or purchases a blank form on his own (if the loss occurred through his fault without the participation of the employer).

Step 2. The HR department fills out a form on which the word “duplicate” is written by hand or in the form of a stamp in the upper right corner of the first page. The citizen’s data is entered in strict accordance with his passport, and data about his specialty is entered on the basis of an education document (diploma, certificate, etc.). Even if the surname on the old form was corrected on the basis of the marriage certificate, the current surname is entered into the new document, and no marks are made about its change.

Step 3. The HR department enters into a new form information known to it about the work, including permanent transfers, and about the dismissal of the citizen. These entries are made on the basis of the employment contract, additional agreements to it and the information entered in the personal card of the T-2 form.

Step 4. The HR specialist fills out the section on awards and incentives. Entries are made only on the basis of documents stored in the organization (orders, instructions, etc.). Step 5. Records are not certified by the employer's seal while the citizen continues to work in the organization.

If the book that was lost or damaged contained information about work experience in other organizations, then restoring the work book becomes more difficult. Information about the work must be entered into the restored form only on the basis of supporting documents.

If the old form is not lost, but only damaged, but the entries are readable, then it is allowed to use it as a supporting document and record the length of service based on the previous information. In this case, the names of the old employing organizations are not indicated, but a general entry of the following type is made:

“The total work experience is 10 years 7 months 14 days.”

After this entry, the name of the company in which the citizen is employed is entered, and then all records are made about his experience in it, as explained above.

The personnel officer is obliged to help his employee restore as much information as possible about his work experience: formulate requests to the organizations that were the previous places of work of such a citizen, with a request to send the necessary information. Another situation is what to do if the employer has lost the employee’s work book or it was lost as a result of an emergency. In this case, the employee is not required to write an application for its reinstatement. The procedure for restoring and issuing a new form in this case is no different.

On the basis of what documents are entries made in the duplicate work book?

In accordance with the rules for maintaining work books, entries in the duplicate work book are made on the basis of properly executed documents.

Such documents may include:

• written employment contracts;
• certificates issued by employers from previous places of work;
• certificates from the state or municipal archive confirming periods of work with previous employers;
• extracts from employment (dismissal) orders or copies thereof;
• personal accounts and payroll statements;
• court decision on establishing length of service, etc.

The phrase about the proper execution of these documents means that all documents must be presented in originals or duly certified copies.

That is, in any case, whether it is an original or a copy, the document must have “living” signatures and seals.

In this regard, I would like to note some discrepancies between the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of April 16, 2003 No. 225 and the Decree of the Ministry of Labor of Russia of October 10, 2003 No. 69.

If in the first the documents on the basis of which entries are made in the duplicate work book also include copies of orders for employment (dismissal), then in the Resolution of the Ministry of Labor such documents include only originals, from which the employer himself makes copies at the last place of work and he himself assures.

In this regard, the Resolution of the Ministry of Labor is not very justified, because often the employee is not even given a copy of the order, but only an extract from it, which, strictly speaking, cannot be attributed to the original order.

Fortunately, the Government Resolutions have greater legal force, which eliminates the contradictions in these regulations.

The employer is obliged to assist in the collection of these documents, but in fact he is limited in his actions.

Each time he will need to prove that he is asking for personal data for a reason, but as part of assisting the employee.

The citizen himself, as a direct participant in labor relations, can collect all the documents with less time.

Look at the mental map, which tells about the limits of the employee’s financial liability

Or find out HERE how much we have to work

Filling out a duplicate

A duplicate work record book will be filled out directly by all companies in which you worked. If the company does not exist, then in this case it is necessary to make a request to the archive. Based on your application, you will be provided with all the necessary data and an entry will be made in your work book. If there is no data in the archive, you should file a claim in court, based on the claim, the bailiffs will make the necessary requests to the appropriate authorities to obtain confirmation.

When filling out a duplicate, do not be surprised that your work experience may be recorded for all years worked in one amount and without indicating the position you held.

We hope this article will help you sort out your duplicate recovery problems.

Registration of a duplicate

To calculate the pension, a record of the total length of service is sufficient. But it will not help in confirming your experience and qualifications to new employers. Therefore, the question often arises, if a work record is lost, how to restore the records. This can only be done if there are supporting documents from previous places of work. Entering data without documentary justification is a violation of the law.

Here's how to restore a work book if lost, according to the Instructions for filling out work books:

Step 1 . On the first page in the upper right corner, write “Duplicate”.

Step 2 . Enter information about the employee in the same way as when filling out a new work book.

Step 3 . Fill out the “Job Information” section.

• Indicate the total length of service that the employee had before joining the last employer. Example entry: “Total work experience is 12 years 3 months 11 days.”
• Based on the available documents, fill out columns 2–3: time of hiring for the previous job, position and other information, date and reason for dismissal.
• In column 4, write down information about the document justifying the entry. That is, for example, not “order No. 543” as it would have been in the original, but “a certified copy of order No. 543”

Financial liability of the employer for the loss of a work book

For the loss or intentional retention of a work book, you can hold all culprits accountable, with an administrative fine of 1 to 5 thousand rubles. These fines apply to individual entrepreneurs, and if your employer is a legal entity, then the amount of fines in this case will range from thirty to fifty thousand rubles, or suspension of the enterprise’s activities for up to three months.

In the statement of claim, you can demand to recover from the employer the average salary in your favor for each day of delay in providing the necessary documents. You can read more about this in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Article 234, Chapter 38.

In addition, you have the right to demand compensation for moral damages and all costs of collecting documents; for this, keep all receipts.