To fill out a personnel action form correctly, enter the employee’s identifying information, check the exact type of action being taken, show the current terms next to the new terms with specific pay figures and classification, set a single effective date, add a short factual justification, and route it through every required signature before your payroll cutoff. Get those pieces right and the form does its real job: giving HR, payroll, and any future auditor one clean record of what changed and who approved it.
A personnel action form (PAF) is the internal document your HR department uses to record every significant change in an employee’s job status, pay, or position. Private employers aren’t required to use any particular government form, so most companies build their own template. The federal government’s Standard Form 52 runs to dozens of fields; your version can be far simpler, as long as anyone opening the file months later can reconstruct what changed, when, and who signed off.
Know Which Action You Are Documenting
Before you touch the form, be clear on what triggered it. A PAF should be completed any time an employee’s relationship with the organization changes in a way that affects pay, title, schedule, or status. That includes:
- New hires and rehires.
- Promotions, demotions, transfers between departments or locations.
- Compensation changes, including merit raises, cost-of-living adjustments, and shift differentials.
- Schedule or classification changes, such as moving between full-time and part-time or between exempt and nonexempt.
- Leaves of absence, including FMLA, personal, and military leave. FMLA-covered employers must provide specific written notices about leave terms, and the PAF anchors that documentation internally.1U.S. Department of Labor. FMLA: Forms
- Disciplinary actions tied to a status change, such as suspension or involuntary demotion.
- Separations: voluntary resignation, retirement, layoff, or involuntary termination.
A simple test: if the change would show up on a paycheck stub or in the employee’s job description, it needs a PAF.
Fill In the Form Step by Step
The person initiating the action is usually the employee’s direct supervisor or an HR coordinator. Work through the form in this order.
1. Employee Identification
Start with the employee’s full legal name, employee ID number, department, current job title, and supervisor name. Double-check the employee ID against the payroll system before you go further. Names get shared and misspelled; the ID is what ties the form to the right payroll record without ambiguity. An error here can route the entire action to the wrong person’s file.
2. Type of Action
Check the box for the type of action from your template’s fixed list: new hire, promotion, transfer, pay increase, status change, leave of absence, suspension, resignation, termination, and so on. If more than one change is happening at once — say, a promotion that also carries a raise and a department transfer — check every box that applies rather than submitting separate forms. The full picture belongs in one document. A free-text “Other” field catches anything unusual.
3. Current Terms
Fill in the “current” column first, pulling data directly from the employee’s existing payroll or HRIS record rather than from memory. Include:
- Job title.
- Department or location.
- Classification: full-time, part-time, exempt, or nonexempt.
- Pay rate, with the pay basis spelled out (hourly, biweekly, or annual).
- Work schedule or hours per week.
4. Proposed Terms
Enter the new information on the same lines so the change is obvious at a glance. If an employee moves from $55,000 to $60,000 annually, both numbers appear side by side. Writing “$30/hr” is clear; writing “$62,400” without noting it’s annual is not.
For separations, replace the proposed-terms column with the last day worked, the reason for separation (resignation, layoff, discharge for cause, retirement), and whether the employee is eligible for rehire. Recording the reason matters because state unemployment agencies will ask whether the employee was let go for cause, and the PAF is the first place anyone will look.
5. Effective Date
Every PAF needs a single, unambiguous effective date. That date tells payroll when to start applying the new rate and tells HR when to update the record. Align it with the start of a pay period whenever you can, so payroll doesn’t have to split-calculate a period at two different rates.
6. Justification and Comments
Add a short explanation of why the change is happening. Keep it factual and specific. “Promoted to Senior Analyst based on Q4 performance review, rated Exceeds Expectations” is useful. “Good work” is not. For a termination, note whether it followed a progressive discipline process, and reference the specific policy violation or business reason. These comments become valuable if the action is ever challenged or audited.
7. Signatures
At a minimum, sign and date as the initiator, then route the form to the next approver: typically the department head, then HR. Many organizations add a third signature for a department director or finance officer when the action carries a budget impact. Digital signatures through an HRIS platform carry the same weight as ink on paper and create an automatic timestamp. Every signature line should be filled before the form reaches payroll; an unsigned PAF looks like a draft, not an approved action.
Check the Classification Before You Submit
If the action changes an employee’s exempt or nonexempt status, or moves them into a role where it might, verify the new role meets the applicable salary and duties tests before you finish the form. The federal minimum salary for a white-collar overtime exemption is $684 per week ($35,568 annually), based on the rule currently enforced by the Department of Labor.2U.S. Department of Labor. Earnings Thresholds for the Executive, Administrative, and Professional Exemption From Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections Under the FLSA Promoting someone to a salaried title that pays less than that threshold doesn’t make them exempt from overtime, regardless of what the job is called. Getting this wrong on a promotion or transfer PAF can create overtime liability for every pay period the misclassification was in effect.
Approval Routing and the Payroll Handoff
After the initiator submits, the form moves through a short approval chain. The department head confirms operational need and budget availability. HR reviews for policy compliance, checking that a proposed salary falls within the approved range for the new job grade and that classification is correct.
Once HR gives final approval, the completed form goes to payroll. Automated HRIS platforms handle the handoff instantly and create an audit log. On paper, the signed original needs to reach the payroll officer before the cutoff date for the next pay run. Late submissions mean the employee either gets paid at the old rate or needs a manual correction, and if they were underpaid for even one pay period, you may owe interest or penalties depending on your state’s wage laws. Build in a lead time of at least one full pay cycle before the effective date.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
A few errors show up again and again:
- Submitting after the effective date has passed, forcing retroactive corrections.
- Vague justification. A PAF that says only “termination” leaves the organization exposed when the former employee files for unemployment or alleges wrongful discharge.
- Misclassifying exempt or nonexempt status on a promotion or role change.
- Missing signatures anywhere in the approval chain.
- Entering pay figures without specifying whether they’re hourly, biweekly, or annual.
Keep Medical Information Out of the General File
When a PAF documents leave for a medical reason — FMLA leave, a disability accommodation, or workers’ compensation — be careful about what ends up in the general personnel file. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that medical information collected about an employee be maintained on separate forms and in separate medical files, treated as confidential medical records.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 12112 – Discrimination
The PAF itself can note that an employee is on approved medical leave and record the effective dates. Supporting medical documentation — doctor’s certifications, diagnosis details, accommodation requests — goes into a separate, locked file. Only supervisors and managers who need to know about work restrictions or accommodations should have access, along with first-aid personnel when the situation involves emergency treatment.
How Long to Keep the Completed Form
Federal law sets minimum retention periods that apply to the records a PAF feeds into. Under the FLSA, employers must preserve payroll records for at least three years from the last date of entry, and supplementary records like time cards, wage-rate tables, and work schedules for at least two years. Because a PAF documents rate of pay and effective date, it falls squarely within these records.4U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 21: Recordkeeping Requirements Under the Fair Labor Standards Act Records must be available for inspection by Department of Labor representatives.5eCFR. 29 CFR Part 516 – Records To Be Kept by Employers
Most employers default to keeping every PAF for at least three years, and many keep them for the full duration of employment plus three years, which leaves a comfortable margin if a dispute surfaces after separation.