“Setting the Stage for Automatic Disposition” is the topic for my educational session at the ARMA Conference in San Diego Oct. 26-28. Organizations invest significant human and financial resources in developing and updating record retention schedules. What I don’t see is a follow-up effort to implement the retention schedule. In a recent project SMEs asked, “What’s the point of updating the retention schedule if retention is not being implemented, and documents are not disposed?”
Clearly there are barriers to systematic disposition, and I think the people-process-technology model is helpful in classifying the barriers:
People – In-house lawyers are leery of destroying records, even when retention periods have been satisfied.
Process – Applying the physical model for disposition (approvals by audit, legal, and/or tax before destruction) to electronic records doesn’t seem practical but not sure what to do in lieu of it.
Technology – Tool(s) is not configured or is unable to implement retention.
Can you add to this list of barriers that have a chilling effect on record destruction?
In future blogs we can share strategies for addressing the barriers.
#ERM #ARMA #disposition #ElectronicRecordsManagement #retention #Records-Management