In the current world space for electronic storage seems unlimited. Unlike the days when everything a business did was held in paper and stored in files in cabinets today's offices hold massive amounts of information on individual computers, on network servers, in cloud storage sites and sometimes if they are current on technology in organized electronic storage systems. 
Since electronic file storage has become relatively cheap they often don't feel there is a need to manage how they hold this data and it just keeps on growing year over year. This has implications in many different ways. Of course there are still those organizations which continue to hold a large part of their information in paper format and have not adopted electronic filing.
5 Reasons Retention Strategies Count
- Without a defined retention policy employees have no guidance on what they must keep, should keep or what they can destroy. This leads to hodge podge document and information storage and makes finding documents when they are needed much more difficult.
- There are specific legislative requirements for various classes of documents and information which must be met to maintain a legal business process system. Failure to meet legislated mandates can result in significant penalties and costs.
- Government legislation mandates how certain types of information must be stored and managed. Legislation like PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) have specific requirements on how records are to be managed and stored. Again failure to meet the requirements can lead to fines and other costs. By setting a proper retention schedule on your records you can reduce the potential of problems simply by the fact that the volume of material is reduced thus reducing the potential of an inadvertent breach.
- When records are only kept for the time that is required to meet either the statutory standards or any business standards that have been set the potential for them to be called in any legal proceeding is eliminated. Documents that have been destroyed as part of a managed business standard cannot be expected to be produced in a legal proceeding and there is no potential for a penalty since their destruction has been done as part of a normal course of business structure.
- Setting up a proper retention protocol can be challenging especially if you are using a paper based system. This can lead to being an incentive to adopt alternative storage using the readily available electronic record storage systems now available. Since this is now a mature industry with a wide range of options available and easily having retention rules within the system adopted it is possible to find a package to meet any size business or organization's needs.
Over the years that this blog has been produced we have addressed various facets of the document filing and management tools available. These blogs cover in more details some of the areas referenced here and are useful for further investigation. Recognizing that they span a time frame of several years there may be minor areas which you will note to have changed, but upon review it is almost surprising how much is still applicable and current.
Here are some of the relevant articles to consider:
Personal Information And Important Stored IT Data
Implementing Good Information Governance
Cloud Document Management Fights Crypto Ransomware
Document Management Is Not About Scanning But Retrieval
However you have chosen to build your records and document filing there is a need to figure our your strategy for managing their useful life and then determining how you are going to get rid of all that are no longer a necessity. Holding onto excess records just due to inertia is an increasingly dangerous practice and one which should be ended as soon as possible.
Lee K
