Every employment dispute is won or lost on documents — and the employer controls the systems they live in. The day the exit conversation happens, your laptop, email and HR portal can go dark within hours. Save this list the day the weather changes (a PIP, a show-cause, a hostile one-on-one), not the day the letter arrives.
One rule before the list: save your own employment record, not company property. Forwarding client data, code, or confidential business files hands the employer the counter-allegation that ends your leverage. Everything below is your record.
The fourteen
- Employment contract / offer letter / appointment letter — every version, with annexures.
- Increment, promotion and variable-pay letters — they prove your current CTC when HR's final calculation shrinks it.
- The employee handbook / HR policies as they stand today [portal PDFs change after disputes begin].
- Payslips — last 12 months minimum — the arithmetic backbone of every dues claim.
- Form 16 / salary bank statements — the cross-check when payslips are disputed.
- PF passbook and UAN details — download from the EPFO portal, not the employer's.
- Appraisal history — every rating, every year you can reach. A "non-performer" with four good appraisals is a different case.
- The PIP or show-cause documents and every written response you filed.
- Emails/messages that tell the real story — the target praised, then the sudden reversal; the "better to resign" message; the meeting summary you sent after a verbal threat. Screenshots with dates visible.
- Your resignation draft, if any — and hold it. If pressured, do not submit; read the forced-resignation guide first.
- ESOP grant letters, vesting schedules, plan documents — startups routinely "cannot locate" these later (ESOP guide).
- Leave balance screenshot — encashment disputes are arithmetic disputes; freeze the number.
- Reimbursement claims pending — with proofs.
- The org chart / reporting line as it stands — one screenshot; it matters for the workman/non-workman question and for who-said-what later.
How to save: personal email or drive, one folder, dated filenames. Photograph physical letters. Do it from your own device where policy allows; where the material exists only on company systems, a dated written request for your own employment records is the clean route.
After access dies: what you can still get
PF (EPFO portal), Form 16 (traces/IT portal), bank statements (your bank), and — by written request — your own personnel records from HR, which a later demand notice can compel. But appraisals, chats and policy PDFs rarely survive exit day. The list above is cheap insurance; thirty minutes now against months of "prove it" later.
The moment to stop collecting and start deciding
Documents preserved, the question becomes the route — resignation refused, negotiation, demand notice, or the statutory ladder. That decision tree is the complete exit guide; what each route costs is in the cost guide.
A notice at work, a PIP, or a sudden exit?
A 30-minute consultation maps your position before you sign anything — your contract and documents are read in advance, and you end with a concrete next step in writing.