Ultimately, the goal of any records management workflow is to ensure your organization can facilitate its work, produce desired business outcomes, and reduce costs and risks as much as possible. The ultimate disposition and destruction of unneeded documents is a crucial part of that process.
Indeed, holding onto records unnecessarily can be counterproductive, making the whole records management process harder, costlier, and riskier. But how do you create rules around when, where, and how to keep versus dispose of various records?
Here are the questions you need to ask:
- Is the record subject to regulatory retention requirements? If so, simply follow any requirements or procedures laid out in the regulation. This may mean something like long-term archival in a facility like the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Note that records management staff may need to involve other stakeholders – legal, compliance, risk management, IT – in answering questions related to regulatory requirements. If the record isn’t subject to regulatory retention, move to the next question.
- Is the record subject to a legal hold? If there is litigation, audits, or other legal proceedings underway, some records may be subject to a legal hold. In this case, collect the appropriate records together to hold as evidence until the legal hold expires. Using technology can greatly aid with the discovery process, which can otherwise involve intense manual labor. If there’s no legal hold in place, or it has expired, move to the next question. As with Question #1, other stakeholders may need to have visibility and input into this question.
- Does the record hold business value? In other words, does the record provide helpful information to workers and facilitate the success execution of work activities? If the record does offer business value, before you go any further, first check to see if the record is a duplicate. Next, determine what kind of value the record offers and in what timeframe. If it offers short-term value or is of daily use, keep it in your primary records management system. If it offers long-term value or is only needed occasionally or rarely, consider archiving the record for long-term storage. If there is no current or future business value, move to the next question.
- Does the record contain privileged, confidential, or classified information? If so, it should be subject to secure destruction procedures, like shredding or securely deleting (which can involve overwriting the file multiple times). If not, it can be disposed of according to normal procedures like document recycling. Note that some organizations may opt for specific approval processes before destroying records. It’s also often a good idea to generate a log of record destruction so there are no questions in the future about what happened.
- Finally, does none of the above apply? In that case, the record can be considered what The Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM) terms “data debris” and should be subject to normal disposition/destruction procedures. This is the equivalent of data clutter that can accumulate over time and, unless it’s cleaned out regularly, turn your records management into a mess. According to AIIM, 20% to 40% of the information collected at most organizations falls into the category, and at high volumes can incur enormous costs just in terms of storage and maintenance costs.
If this seems like a lot to handle when applied to every single record, here’s some good news: almost every step of the workflow described above can be simplified and automated with technology. That can not only save time but also prevent human error in the execution of records disposition.
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.