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Properly managing your records is crucial in your company’s day-to-day operations. Proper records management saves your company time and money by making it easier for employees to retrieve any specific file or folder.  You will also be able to preserve company knowledge, which can help you in the future, when you need to make important decisions.  Today we are going to teach you how to setup a proper records management process.

Step 1: Assign a team to handle records management

The first step in establishing a records management process is to assemble a team whose sole purpose is managing the creation, storage, use, and disposal of all company records. A records management team usually includes a high ranking employee from archives, someone from operations and management department, and someone from the I.T. department.

Having a team who knows about currently stored records, what is happening at the company, and someone who is capable of assisting with digital storage issues is essential for any records management team. Once you have your team assembled and briefed, you can proceed to the next phase of establishing a records management process.

Step 2: Conduct an inventory of all company records

The second step is to conduct an inventory of all company records which have already been stored in the archives. If your records management team includes an employee from archives, then it will only make this process easier.

Before initiating the inventory, it would be wise to schedule it in advance and inform all departments of the upcoming event to avoid any scheduling problems or workflow interruptions. Try to carry out the inventory on a day when your company has a lower workload if at all possible. Once you have gone through all pre-existing records, the next step is to set up a management plan for all future records.

Step 3: Set up a records management plan

Having a records management plan will prevent future records from getting disorganized all over again. This management plan should be easily accessible to all employees and should include rules and guidelines for storing new records and returning records after use. This will serve as the cornerstone of your records management process.

Your records management plan should specify where to keep certain types of record. For example, you will need market data and performance documents close by at all times but things tax records are better off stored in the archives. Include parameters which specify what qualifies as a record to avoid any incidents where employees end up cluttering your records storage with piles of irrelevant documents.

Step 4: Establish retention guidelines

Now, all your records are stored neat and tidy, so you should make sure you do not run out of storage space as a result of keeping old records no one needs. Set up retention guidelines for records so all the useless records taking up space can be disposed of while all the important records remain unaffected.

Once you are ready to dispose of outdated records, you can order our document destruction services as an add-on to your current package or as a standalone service.

Step 5: Train Employees

Well, you are keeping track of all currently stored records, your employees know the rules when it comes to storing documents, and you have retention guidelines in place to prevent wasted space due to useless records. But there is still a chink in the armor of your records management process, new employees will not be familiar with the records management guidelines.

If you want to prevent any new employees from mucking up your well-organized system, then you should create a records management training program for all new employees. This will teach them everything they need to know in order to work with your system instead of working against it.

Plan B: Order records management services from Perfect Retention

Having a good records management process can bring many benefits to your company, but it is also very time consuming to maintain. If you would rather have someone else manage your records for you, then you should consider ordering records management services from us here at Perfect Retention. We do the work so you don’t have to.

Read more about Perfect Retention’s records management services by clicking the link to be redirected to our information page.