What to save when work gets complicated, and what to leave

When work gets complicated, save copies of records that are about you and that you were given in the normal course of your job: your offer letter and contract, policies you signed, pay stubs and tax slips, performance reviews, schedules, emails and messages addressed to you, and your own dated notes. Keep them on a personal device or account, not on employer equipment.

Leave alone anything that belongs to the business or to other people: confidential company data, customer files, coworkers' personal information, and anything you would need to bypass access controls to reach. If you are unsure whether a specific document is yours to keep, note that it exists and ask a lawyer before copying it.

Before you save anything, run it through two simple tests. First: is this record about me, and did I receive it legitimately, as an addressee, a signer or the person it describes? Second: does it contain information that belongs to the business, its clients or my coworkers?

A yes to the first and a no to the second is the easy case: save it. A yes to both, such as an email to you that also includes a client list, is a judgment call; a common approach is to note the email's date, sender and subject in your records index without keeping the attachment. A no to the first means it is probably not yours to take.

These documents set out what was agreed when you started and what rules you were told to follow. They are often the first thing a reviewer asks for, and they are surprisingly easy to lose because they were signed years ago.

• The job posting you applied to, if you still have it, and the offer letter
• Your signed employment contract and any later amendments or new agreements you signed
• Job descriptions, especially if your duties changed over time
• Handbook acknowledgement forms and the policies you were given or asked to sign
• Your collective agreement, if you are in a union, plus any letters of understanding you received
• Promotion, transfer or title-change letters, and any written change to your hours or location

Policies deserve a note. If you have a copy of a policy, write down when you received it, because policies are often updated and the version in force at a given moment may matter later. If you only ever saw it on the intranet, note the title and the approximate date you read it rather than downloading the whole policy library.

Pay records are yours by definition, and they are the easiest to lose access to, since many employers deliver them through a portal you can only reach while employed. Download them to a personal location now, not after a change in your status.

• Pay stubs or pay statements, ideally for the whole period you care about
• Annual tax slips: a T4 in Canada, a W-2 in the United States
• Bonus, commission or incentive plan documents and the statements showing how payouts were calculated
• Benefits enrollment confirmations, plan summaries and any letters about changes to coverage
• Your own record of hours if you track shifts, overtime or on-call time
• Expense claims you submitted and the reimbursements you received

Employers keep their own payroll records. The US Department of Labor's recordkeeping fact sheet for the Fair Labor Standards Act lists items such as hours worked each day and week, pay rate and total wages per period. Your personal copies let you compare what you were paid against what you recorded, and they remain available if portal access ends.

Communications addressed to you are the core of most work files. Focus on the ones that show decisions, expectations or changes, not every routine reply.

• Performance reviews, ratings and self-assessments you submitted
• Written warnings, performance improvement plans and any response you sent
• Emails or chat messages from a manager setting targets, deadlines or changes to duties
• Calendar invites for meetings that turned out to matter, with their original attendee list
• Published schedules, shift swaps and messages confirming time off
• Accommodation requests you made and the replies you received
• Congratulations, thank-you notes and positive feedback, which show your work history too

Accommodation is handled under different frameworks in each country, for example the duty to accommodate in Canada and the interactive process under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States. You do not need to know the rules to save the correspondence. Keep the request, the reply and any forms in date order.

Notes you write soon after an event are often the only record of a conversation that happened in person or by phone. Date each note, record the time you wrote it, and describe what was said in plain words. A short note written the same afternoon is usually more useful than a long one written weeks later.

Example note: 2026-02-09, written 5:40 pm. At the 4 pm team check-in, my supervisor said the weekend coverage rotation would now include me every second week starting February 21. I said I had a standing family commitment on Saturdays. My supervisor said to put it in an email. I sent the email at 5:20 pm, saved as R-12.

If your situation affects your health, you may also keep a private record of appointments and symptoms. Store medical details separately from the main file so you can choose later who sees them.

Taking the wrong material can create a separate problem and distract from your own records. These categories are best left where they are, or noted by description only:

• Confidential business information: financials, pricing, strategy decks, source code, product plans
• Customer or client records, including names, contact lists and account details
• Coworkers' personal information: their pay, health, home addresses, performance files
• Bulk downloads or forwards of whole mailboxes, shared drives or chat channels
• Anything reached through a password, system or account you are not authorized to use
• Recordings of conversations; rules on recording differ by province, territory and state, so get legal advice before relying on or making one

There are often legitimate routes to records you cannot simply copy. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada explains that employees keep privacy rights at work and can view personal information their employer holds about them and challenge its accuracy. Which privacy law applies depends on the employer, and in the US access to personnel files varies by state. Listing a record as something to request is usually safer than taking it.

A work laptop, work phone or company cloud account is the wrong home for this file. Employers can usually access their own systems, and you may lose access without warning. Set up a personal location once and use it consistently.

1. Choose one personal account or device that only you control, with a strong password and two-step sign-in.
2. Create one folder for the situation, with subfolders for job documents, pay, messages and notes.
3. Name files date first so they sort chronologically.
4. Keep a simple list of what you saved, when, and where the original came from.
5. Make one backup in a second personal location, such as an external drive kept at home.
6. Review the folder weekly while things are active, adding new records the same day they arrive.

Can I forward work emails to my personal address? Many employers have policies against forwarding business email to personal accounts, and some treat it as a breach. For messages about you, consider printing to PDF on a personal device you are permitted to use, or noting date, sender and subject in your index. If in doubt, ask a lawyer first.

Should I take screenshots of chat messages? Screenshots of messages sent to you are common. Make sure the date, time and sender are visible, and crop out other people's unrelated messages where you can. Note in your index where the screenshot came from.

I already lost access to the portal. What now? Write down which records were there and for which period. Former employees can often ask payroll or HR for copies, and in Canada a Record of Employment can be viewed through My Service Canada Account. Your list of missing items becomes a request list.

Is saving records a sign I am planning legal action? No. Keeping copies of your own pay stubs, contract and reviews is ordinary personal recordkeeping. Many people keep a file and never use it beyond their own reference.

A folder and a list are enough to start. SteadyFile adds structure around the same inventory: a private work file you open in the browser at app.steadyfile.com, free to start and usable on your phone, with a records index that gives each saved document an ID, a people list by role instead of names, and a gaps list for records you know exist but cannot copy. Dated entries hold your own notes next to the records they mention. With an account, it keeps when each entry was created and shows edit history. Your employer has no access, and the export is a chronological PDF packet you can share with a reviewer if you choose.