Dealing with disciplinary records
What is the records life cycle?
Whether your team has an in-house system or uses an outside records management service, it is important to understand the records life cycle. You want to position your organisation to best manage personnel documents, client agreements, and other records better and comply with statutory retention policies.
Although there are variations on the records life cycle, at its core, it can be broken down into four stages.
Stage 1: Creation
The information is received, preferably in both electronic and physical form. Once the information is verified, it needs to be converted into a record in the correct format. Records are considered active at this stage.
Stage 2: Classification
Once created, records are sorted and classified according to the parameters and schedule of your record management system. Make sure the classification suits your companies needs so your records can be easily retrieved. You will likely want to give multiple searchable traits for your records. Take the time to customise these fields with your information management team.
This process ensures that records which need more frequent or active use can be accessed quickly by your team.
Stage 3: Maintenance
Because the record is active, ensuring that data integrity is well-maintained is essential. One step is to verify that the document storage method for the physical or electronic copies is organised by the classification system in Stage 2 and that the storage method is well-protected. For example, this may involve hardware upgrades to servers and/or making sure the records are in an easy-to-reach location, as maintenance is most important when a record is active.
Maintenance should also include a log of use as well as the individuals who have access to the records so that there is no delay when the records are needed.
In addition to maintaining active records, semi-active and inactive records must be retained as well until they reach the following stage. These may be moved offsite to an archive storage facility. Keep data integrity and secure access in mind for these materials as well.
Stage 4: Disposition
The final stage of the records life cycle occurs when retention periods expire for inactive records. Now that the information is no longer required, and you have complied with the statutory period for maintaining the data, the record is eligible for shredding or a transfer to archives. Where the record ends up should be based on your company’s record policy as well as the record’s value.
Destruction or archival should be completed as a normal part of business, but this process is often suspended during a litigation hold or audit hold. Make sure that your legal team keeps the information management team aware of any developments, so they can handle disposition appropriately.
This is the basic records life cycle, but your company may need modifications to suit your business needs. For example, some organisations may have an additional records management system to handle archiving for research purposes or policies in place to handle records that may move from active to inactive states frequently.
For more information about how to manage important business records, speak to one of our experts today.
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