Did you develop a "records retention program"?

[Anonymous]

So.... my company is about 100 years old, and they have done a crappy job over the years of maintaining their filing system. Lucky me has been tasked with developing a records retention program.

I can google "records retention program", but I was hoping to hear from some real-life people who were faced with such a daunting task.

It seems impossible to even know where to begin. How to look at hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper and figure out what to trash or keep or how to even characterize it! Sigh.

Anyone successfully cope with such a task? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Similar situation.....we outsourced it. Got temps in to do a bunch of scanning and organizing. There are some companies that can provide complete solutions. If your company isn't willing to pay to do it right....good luck.

Also, step 1 is devleop a policy if you don't have one. We have a document that lists every department, the categories of docs they generate, and how long they retain them, as well as who the official custodian is.

[Anonymous]

Agree - talk to the professionals. Iron Mountain might have some resources to help.

[Anonymous]

OP depending on your industry, the govt has requirements for how long you must keep certain documents/originals/records of xyz. Talk to the professionals and possibly your legal/regulatory dept if appropriate, to ensure you are in compliance with recordkeeping specs.

[Anonymous]

I agree with PPs, but here's how I would think about the steps:

I assume you know roughly what kind of records you're dealing with: if not, flip through them and get a sense. Are these contracts, HR documents, somebody's archive of birthday cards, or what?

With legal's help, draw up a list of reasons to keep things (e.g., you keep open contracts for different reasons than you keep old, completed contracts) and the types of things your office is likely to have that fall into each category. Then based on the reasons, decide how long you need to keep each type of thing (e.g., if legal says you can trash contracts older than 5 years then you might want three piles of contracts: open, closed less than 5 years, and closed more than 5 years).

Start sorting, with outsourced help if possible. Do not actually throw anything out yet. Then reevaluate your categories, paying special attention to what's in the "leftovers" pile -- can it all be tossed? If not, you need more categories and/or to rethink your plan. You may also find that subcategories suggest themselves as you are sorting.

Come up with a plan for how everything will be sorted and filed going forward, and how old records will be evaluated and discarded on a regular basis. Your office obviously does not have good document handling habits, so unless you propose and enforce some kind of policy your new system will not last very long.

Present your plan to the boss[es] and get buy-in. Important areas for buy-in include the decisions about retention, boss' commitment to enforcing your new policy, green light on any filing tools (file banks, website, outsourced help), and green light to trash certain things. Revise and circulate as needed.

Last, actually scan and/or file, and discard what you've decided to. (Although yes, you may have had to do some de facto filing as you went just for physical space reasons.)

[Anonymous]

I hope you are with a company of similar age that I represented once. Document collection for a litigation was a nightmare. They had stuff everywhere, haphazard, and right when we thought we were done someone said, "oh, did you look in the closet?" Lo and behold they had a random, unlabeled closet stuffed with ancient, uncategorized documents. Never seen a place in such desperate need of a records retention program/policy/divine aid.

[Anonymous]

Check out arma.org. They should have pretty much anything that you need.

[Anonymous]

In addition to the many great recommendations above, I'd also suggest developing and implementing a training program for all employees to ensure sustainment of the system you develop. Records Management is everyone's responsibility.
Also, when we did our clean-up, we scheduled time with each department and went desk to desk. The employees were responsible for going through their files with us. We also had a "library" and a number of communal file cabinets for the team to clean out. It took 3-4 people approx 9 months to go through everything and get the new system established. None of us were assigned to records management full-time so we usually set aside part of the day on Fridays to complete the RM tasks.
Nara.gov may also have some good resources. Good luck!