Failures related to records management can be very serious. When records are not managed properly, agencies and other organizations can fall out of compliance with federal or state laws, make themselves vulnerable to legal action or some form of oversight like an audit, and may even incur penalties or find themselves subject to legal fees.
The only way to successfully address the risks associated with record management is to understand what those risks are. Here are the top 5 risks associated with records management in government organizations.
1: Missing records
Whether records are misfiled, later lost, or never preserved at all, organizations not only spend an excessive amount of time and money trying to find missing records, but the loss of these records can also prevent an organization from carrying out its core mission in the first place. Research from industry advisory group Gartner found that among private businesses, only 6% survived more than two years after a “major loss” of records.
Best practices: Make sure formal record schedules are complete and comprehensive, offer adequate user training, and use a good GSA-approved records management solution.
2: Records can’t be found
Closely related to the prior point, sometimes government agencies are successful at collecting and preserving records but then can’t adequately search for and find them late. In other words, search functionality is subpar. This risk is growing in seriousness as the sheer number of records proliferates exponentially. If records can’t be found – even if they’re in the system! – they might as well have not been collected at all.
Best practices: The technology used for managing records plays a pivotal role here: it needs to include robust functionality for classifying and describing records with information that is fully searchable.
3: Incomplete or incorrect records
Sometimes records are captured and preserved but not with complete accuracy. Particularly when it comes to web and electronic records, it can be easy to collect the basic record but lose contextual metadata. The result is a record that is incomplete or maybe even incorrect.
Best practices: This requires the right tools and policies to ensure that users capture records accurately and in their entirety.
4: Noncompliance with records management policies
Sometimes records managers can do everything that they’re supposed to do – they can set the right policies, develop helpful record schedules, implement helpful records management tools and systems – but the end-users won’t follow the policies appropriately. This can lead the organization to fall out of compliance.
Best practices: Here, agencies need to solicit user buy-in, deploy sufficient training to make sure users understand what they need to do and how to do it, and communicate the advantages to the user of compliance. Also, it’s critical to use technologies and tools that are user-friendly.
5: Vulnerability to improper access or hacking
The U.S. government is a major data-rich target for bad actors seeking to exfiltrate records and valuable data. As Fortune Magazine reports, “As one of the world’s largest collectors of sensitive information, America’s federal government is a major target for hackers from both the private sector and foreign governments.” Government data being lost or compromised can not only impose significant costs on government agencies, but it can also reduce the overall security of the nation.
Best practices: The solution is to ensure any records management protocols and technologies incorporate critical security and privacy functionality, from advanced encryption to role based access controls.
About PSL
PSL is a global outsource provider whose mission is to provide solutions that facilitate the movement of business-critical information between and among government agencies, business enterprises, and their partners. For more information, please visit or email info@penielsolutions.com.