If you work in an industry that handles a substantial number of documents - especially documents containing protected personal information or protected health information - it's important that your records management practices reduce risk for both the company and its stakeholders. Some of the best practices for records management include:
If you must maintain paper documents, those that contain confidential information should be kept behind double lock and key - typically in a locked file cabinet in a locked office or document storage room. Organizations often end up with more records than they have space to lock away, especially as these documents sit in their retention period, no longer referenced but too soon to destroy.
In these cases, records management companies can provide secure records storage, so you can trust that your documents are stored according to best practices and strict industry guidelines until they've reached their destruction date.
Transitioning to electronic document storage offers a number of benefits:
While many business owners are overwhelmed by digitization, full-service records management companies can take on the workload of scanning in paper documents and ensuring your team has the access they need. You can sit back, relax, and reap the rewards when the digitization project is finished and you're able to move to electronic document storage.
Finally, best practice involves implementing a records retention policy that includes annual document destruction. Your policy should address:
You should also have a policy that covers the destruction of old technology/hard drives to ensure the protection of your company, employees, and clients.
Once you've written a records retention policy, you'll begin the process of putting the policy into practice. At the end of each year, you'll go through your records to archive those that are not ready to be destroyed but that no longer need to be readily available for daily referencing. Each file should be marked with a destruction date based on the retention period specified in your policy, and once a year the files that have reached their destruction date should be professionally shredded.
To learn more about off-site document storage, electronic document management, or secure document shredding, visit Shred America today.