Why carry White Elephants? Appraise your Records Wikipedia defines “a white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness.” Records Management has become a White Elephant for many businesses. An expensive affair that cannot be stopped and yet is a very demanding process too. Organizations reel under tremendous pressure as they operate on thin margins and get affected easily with interdependency among economic variables. Businesses now focus on looking inward for improving efficiency and driving down costs. It's a game that spells Cost Optimization and ROI Maximization across the board – support functions included. Return on Investment in anything and everything influences the decision-making on any projects so that the available budgets are spent wisely on prioritized campaigns. If your records management process is not able to justify its usefulness, it will be soon positioned as a white elephant within your organization and can set back growth. So here are few best practices that can save your records management function from becoming a white elephant: Be specific about your industry-specific norms What is applicable as record-keeping compliance for another industry may not be useful. Learn the depths and specific terms of your business-specific record-keeping compliances requirements. The policies may vary based on the situations, document types, use cases and timelines. Having the right understanding and that too of validated information from the right authority body must be very helpful. Spread the knowledge across all employees who work on storing and managing records. Devise a personalized records management framework Industry specific compliances hold good for all businesses. However, the records management framework can be very special and personalized only for your business. Consult with records and information management (RIM) professionals before finalizing and optimizing for your business. Recognize the value of information and extract the same The positive difference in maintaining a proper record management system will happen when all employees are trained on the value of information. Getting maximum returns out of the stored information can happen after realizing the value. Studies need to be conducted on the in-depth workflows of records across multiple business functions and between internal and external stakeholders. Invest on the right infrastructure Of course no strategic function is cheap to manage so easily. Records Management involves investments in the form of investing on the right infrastructure. Right from the space that occupies for records storage to the hours employees spend on maintaining record register files, everything has to be studied well. The biggest realization for businesses has been about identifying the number of time employees have to spend before creating, storing and retrieving records. Having clarity on the same will help to take strategic decisions like whether to keep records management in-house or to outsource the records management to a professional records management companies. Even before the situation becomes uncontrollable, businesses can invite records management and Information Management professionals for consulting them with industry best practices. Know when to shred it Records retention policies are once again very specific to your industry type and nature of the business. Validate that with the right authority body and act accordingly. Ensure clear documentation and training is completed on the same. This policy will define the life cycle of a document, how long it should be kept, when it should be destroyed and how it should be destroyed. Keep the record retention schedule as public as possible so that it does not go missed. Create reminders as part of the record keeping protocol and delegate staff members with actionable workflows. The cost of storing, maintaining and retrieving documents skyrockets when duplicates of documents and records that were supposed to be shredded long back are still being maintained. Get a Record Retention Certification! Have proof for your record shredding process. This record will also maintain compliance and security of the business and will avoid confusion in the future. You can get this certificate by hiring a record management company to manage your records. They can help you with a document shredding certificate after destroying it safely. Audit & Optimize the process The real results come when there is sufficient amount of audit happening on the overall progress of records management. Internal stakeholders or external agencies can be invited to conduct Records maintenance audits that will ensure no bias. Make sufficient documentation in place to capture key insights and the recommendations are completed to address the gaps. Train the workforce - again and again Reduce records management risks by educating employees about the entire records lifecycle and their role in managing it properly. Records Management Training generally covers the importance of recordkeeping and how to create, archive, protect and destroy records. Insufficient or no training increases the risk that staff may mismanage records and breach the record-keeping protocol and the retention and disposal schedule. The value of each employee in preserving the organization’s reputation and maintaining an ethical workplace must be well communicated. Employees may assume many things when not given ample information on Who to contact with suspicions, concerns or questions. Please cover all such information as part of the training. Take Professional Assistance from Record Management Companies Need support with implementing and maintaining systematic records management? Consult KAYMAN. Kayman is one of the best offsite record management companies in Chennai, that can help you with the collection, storing, retrieval and shredding of records! The highly secure document storage system of Kayman will keep your files safely and will destroy them on time. Hire Kayman Vaults— Documenting Peace of Mind!