Documenting HR issues is important for you as a leader and your organization as a whole.  When I was at Marriott, I learned how to coach, counsel, and discipline employees. Documenting HR issues was part of the training that stuck with me the rest of my career.  If you have any issue with an employee, you need to build a record of the history of the behavior in case it becomes a problem. Documentating issue gives you and the employee clarity to what is going on. Without documentation, both parties may have a different understanding of what the problem is, or if there is even a problem at all. When you hire new employees, let them know upfront you have a system to document HR issues.  Document not only the issue but the consequences.  And when you document consequences, you have to follow through.