These are exciting times to be a Records Manager. Records and Information Management (RIM) is maturing around the world to become a respected business discipline that makes cents for companies that Get It . And yep, I did mean cents, because a well-designed and functioning RIM program improves profit for companies. There is just no doubt about it. I digress, but I remember the days before the use of statistics matured into an essential part of every manufacturing company's routine business processes, reducing waste and improving profitability. Statistics was for gamblers, insurance companies, and the classroom. Today, no company would even think of buying a piece of production equipment before it had statistically demonstrated its capability to repeatedly make parts to specification. Records and Information Management is on the same trajectory as statistics was in the 1980 s. It is no longer focused on the departmental storage of paper records. If you have added the storage of electronic records, that's good, but still far away from best practice. Best Practice today includes recognition of records as corporate assets and establishing governance through the RIM program.
Yeh I keep hearing that word governance sounds expensive, what does it mean really? Well, you'll hear a lot of different words describing and defining governance, but fundamentally it is about control and utilization full company knowledge of, control of, and utilization of its records and information all of its records and information. This extends to the practices of every individual who creates, utilizes, manages, stores, or disposes of records and information. The basic practice elements of a governance RIM program include:
Policy Clear identification of what an Official Record (required for business, legal or regulatory purposes) is for the company, and the roles and responsibilities for those directly involved in the management of records and information, as well as for all, that create, utilize, manage, store, or dispose of records and information (yes, I did say all).
Procedures What individuals and departments need to do to satisfy the company's policy requirements.
Records Retention Schedule (this is the big one, and really an extension of the Records and Information Management policy) this needs to be comprehensive; nothing excluded the retention requirement for each of the company's records no matter what the media type or location. Paper, electronic, specimen, prototype it doesn't matter if it is a record, there will be a retention requirement. It might be stored offsite at a records storage provider, in a corporate computer business application, in a department's file cabinet or shared drive, or an individual's desk or computer or (dare I say it) Blackberry. IF IT IS A COMPANY RECORD, IT NEEDS TO BE MANAGED AND RETAINED ACCORDING TO COMPANY POLICY INCLUDING THE RECORDS RETENTION SCHEDULE. Thankfully, best practice comprehensive Records Retention Schedules are now constructed in a way to facilitate a record's identification within a grouping of record's with a similar business purpose and identified retention requirements, derived from business need, legal, and regulatory requirements.
Governance begins with these three foundational RIM program components. This is where you start. Is it expensive? Doesn't have to be, consider it as an investment on the resulting improved profitability. Some will try to sell you computer applications to process data and manage records. These need to be considered individually from a return on investment perspective. The bigger problem is the paradigm shift that needs to take place in thinking across the company. Now everyone from the boardroom to the cubicle needs to be onboard in compliance to the governance establishing RIM requirements. Do you get it? Does your company get it? A successful future for both of you may depend on it.
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These are exciting times to be a Records Manager. Records and Information Management (RIM) is maturing around the world to become a respected business discipline that makes cents for companies that Get It . And yep, I did mean cents, because a well-designed and functioning RIM program improves profit for companies. There is just no doubt about it. I digress, but I remember the days before the use of statistics matured into an essential part of every manufacturing company's routine business processes, reducing waste and improving profitability. Statistics was for gamblers, insurance companies, and the classroom. Today, no company would even think of buying a piece of production equipment before it had statistically demonstrated its capability to repeatedly make parts to specification. Records and Information Management is on the same trajectory as statistics was in the 1980 s. It is no longer focused on the departmental storage of paper records. If you have added the storage of electronic records, that's good, but still far away from best practice. Best Practice today includes recognition of records as corporate assets and establishing governance through the RIM program.
