"There is no cookie-cutter approach to creating an effective document retention policy...An effective document retention program can wonderfully reduce storage problems
Today as a solution to the information explosion, organizations have decided to adopt a document retention policy and schedule. The purpose of adopting such a document is to ensure: 1) Orderly access to and retention of important documents 2) Routine and appropriate disposal of such materials that is no longer necessary for the organization to meet its business, ethical or legal obligations. 3) Full compliance with the organizations legal and ethical duties, including, but not limited to, any duties that may arise as a result of any litigation If your organization has a document retention policy, this is usually the time of year when you review the retention schedule and attempt to dispose of the information that has satisfied the end of its document lifecycle
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” Me: “So according to your document retention policy, how long to do keep those documents in storage?...” OR “Oh, we worked on a document retention policy years ago, but we just keep everything forever
The conversation took off when I asked, “How many organizations have a document retention policy?” Nearly everyone in the room raised its hand...The reality is most organizations have a document retention policy, but fail to enforce that policy
Records Management is and always will be a support function so staff must be trained on proper etiquette and client facing interaction • Become knowledgeable of the myriad of Records and Information based standards that exist such as: ISO 15489-1 and the MOREQ standards for electronic records • Become a champion of your organization’s Document Retention policy and be ready to train end users on proper compliance • Become not simply Records Managers but Content Managers
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The Bottom Line The reality is most organizations have invested much time, resources and $$$ to develop an document retention policy. If you are one of those organizations, you should be commended
Organizations import its document retention schedule into a workflow and rely on the software to do the rest
You have processes that need to be followed, document retention requirements, compliance standards, auditing procedures and reports and protocols
It is the reason for all the effort we put into researching and documenting retention and disposition requirements
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You can argue the granular components (things like item-level permissions, or document retention roles) but the fact is that some small organizations need complex governance infrastructures, and some massive organizations prefer keeping their governance models as simple as possible