ELM Revision: Official Personnel Folder

Effective April 12, 2007, Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM) 349, Official Personnel Folder, is added to describe the purpose and contents of a Postal Service employee’s Official Personnel Folder (OPF). Part 349 also describes the electronic OPF (eOPF) system and what con­stitutes an “official record” in the OPF.

Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM)

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3 Employment and Placement

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340 Suitability, Selection, and Appointment

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[Add 349 to read as follows:]

349 Official Personnel Folder 349.1 Purpose

The Official Personnel Folder (OPF) documents the employment history of individuals employed by the federal government. The records included in the OPF protect the legal and financial rights of the government and the employee. An OPF is established and maintained for each Postal Service employee, regardless of appointment type of duration.

349.2 Contents

The OPF contains personnel records that reflect the employee’s official status, benefits, and service and includes other documents that are significant in the employee’s Postal Service career. When an employee has former postal or federal civilian service, the OPF for that service must be merged into a single OPF.

349.3 Electronic Official Personnel Folder System

The official record of a document in an OPF is the hard copy until the document is scanned and accepted into the Postal Service’s electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF) system. At that point, the scanned image contained in the eOPF system is the official record of the document, and the hard copy ceases to be the official record.

Exceptions:

a. If a PS Form 50, Notification of Personnel Actions, (1) has been created electronically and stored in the Postal Service’s human resources information sys­tem, and (2) has not been printed out in hard copy and placed in the OPF, then the official record is the electronic version of the PS Form 50 stored in the hu­man resources information system.

b. If a document has been created electronically and stored in the Postal Service’s eOPF system, the offi­cial record is the electronic version of the document stored within the eOPF system.

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We will incorporate this revision into the next printed version of the ELM and into the next online update, avail­able on the Postal Service™ PolicyNet Web site:

• Go to http://blue.usps.gov.
• Under “Essential Links” in the left-hand column, click on References.
• Under “References” in the right-hand column, under “Policies,” click on PolicyNet.
• Click on Manuals.

(The direct URL for the Postal Service PolicyNet Web site is http://blue.usps.gov/cpim.)

The ELM is also available on the Postal Service Internet:

• Go to www.usps.com.
• Click on About USPS & News, then Forms & Publica­tions, then Postal Periodicals and Publications, and then Manuals.

— Selection, Evaluation, and Recognition,
Employee Resource Management, 4-12-07