For records management start small, but start somewhere

Think you want to improve your records management? A majority of people who come to me in search of solutions to inefficient records management bring along 5 – 40 years worth of records. My first priority is to concentrate on the “Why” of the problem: why is the current system inefficient? Time after time, the inefficiency lies within document retrieval. When I sit down to discuss how many retrievals per day, week or month they do, it amazes me to hear how long it takes to find a document – if at all. Documents, both paper and electronic, are often misfiled (generally 6 – 10%) or just plain lost which can end up costing you anywhere from $15,000 to $200,000!

I’m okay with the fact that they don’t see themselves fixing the problem at this time because of budget - even after doing a ROI study showing how it would have paid for itself. The part that is really amazing is that the possible solution is still 2-3 years down the road. Several years of additional records will just compound the problem.

So here’s the tough question: who in the company is really responsible for the records management (both paper and digital)? It’s as if the company had a problem-child that no one wants to claim. Each year, the amount of time spent looking for records and the amount of money lost due to poor records management grows. All this while auditors demand more and more from your record keeping.

If you’ve been reading previous e-zines you will know that I always advise people to start with a small project - if it took you 30 years to store that many records, don’t expect to organize it all overnight. Somebody in the company needs to adopt the responsibility because the reality is that this problem does not go away on its own. In fact, it just gets bigger.

Let this be the year somebody, perhaps you, takes the responsibility to stop the paper-madness in your company.

Want more information on how to get started? Click on the link below, type “Get Me Started” on the contact us section and we’ll send you a cost justification kit.