Usually, employees in companies don’t know what information governance or record management is and, even worse, don’t understand its importance. Consequently, it is difficult for employees to adhere to records management procedures and guidelines.
This lack of knowledge can lead to various levels of frustration in everyday work for all employees and expose the organization to different kinds of risks in keeping your data secure. When the implementation of rules and regulations is forced, it can become an uphill battle leading to that same employee frustration and many lost work hours.
Wasting time looking for a specific document, whether it is an actual paper or a digital one, can lead to unmotivated employees being unwilling to perform a simple task.
This article lists five tips to help record managers facilitate their job while, at the same time, increasing employee buy-in for your company’s information governance.
1. Make it modern, visual and exciting
- It’s outdated to have record and document management guidelines on paper. You can make a short explanatory presentation or a video for teams and departments involved with record management. Show them how their efforts can help make both your and their work easier and time saving. Have the video accessible at any time for your employees.
- You can make a straightforward comparison, for example, of the disorganized office and show a picture of a messy office where employees are looking for files and documents which are all over the place. Then combine it with disorganization and stressed out employees. The digital office is no different. You just can’t see the mess at first glance, but everything else is the same. If there are no guidelines there will always be a mess unless you can get all employee buy-in.
2. Make it understandable by making it relatable
- The guidelines of file organization at your digital workplace should always be understandable. Show them how processing information should be done for your organization of (e)mails, invoices, and other incoming information related to your organization. If we keep unnecessary items, we will lose track of what should be taken care of, when, and what we can throw out. Eventually, people end up having piles of papers that scare them and never get things done on time. Point out that if you keep your documents in order and sorted, you can easily find what you need in seconds.
- The same applies for all departments within your organization; if every employee follows the guidelines of document organization, the work will be more accessible for every team member. Regardless of whether the work is performed at the office or remotely, properly organized and tagged documents are a time savior.
3. A well-designed template is a job halfway done
- CoreData, digital workplace and document management software (DMS) provides the opportunity to create well-designed templates, making the whole process more trouble-free for all people involved. Additionally, it reduces risks when the document, task, or project needs to be created quickly, and there is no room for errors. DMS is a great associate which allows employees to focus on their work while, at the same time, helps record managers to take care of other tasks, knowing the documents are tagged and stored appropriately.
- If implemented correctly, the employees won’t feel the burden of adapting the new procedures and guidelines because the document management solution will do it independently. DMS can even accelerate their work!
4. Celebrate and communicate achievements
- When you define specific thresholds related to your information governance, it is easier for everyone to follow – for example, make a scoreboard with successful metrics. Give regular appreciation to employees for their effort and time invested in keeping the data organized and filed with correct tags and metadata. Proper records management is even more critical in a paperless office because no one likes to browse through endless documents titled “untitled document #XYZ.”
- You can even make small celebrations when reaching a specific threshold. For example, let’s say you filed 34.000 documents in a defined period – you can send thank-you emails to inform your team that the desired number of files are well stored and with complete data. Even have a short get-together and show appreciation. It can mean a lot to employees, showing you value the teamwork and effort they invest.
5. Look for success stories that lead by example
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Every team has that one member, more successful than others; point their effort out and let them act as a positive example and a power-user. Also, encourage other employees to ask for help when they find themselves in a dead-end.
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Promote them to become internal influencers who can help inside and provide valuable internal feedback and improvement suggestions. Maybe you can even implement (anonymous) suggestion boxes where employees can throw their ideas in.
The importance of high-quality record management should be looked at from two different aspects: individual employee aspect and overall company aspect. When the employees understand the importance of correctly organized data in the company, they will be more efficient and productive. A good example of this is described in CoreData case study about Kadeco, Keflavik Airport development company that cut down document retrieval time by 30%.
Consequently, they will adhere to the document organization’s rules and regulations. On the other hand, companies must conform to many international and national laws, regulations, rules, etc. Therefore, keeping the data more secure if an appropriately stored digital workplace, like CoreData, will achieve two things at once: the organizations will know where exactly their documents are and adhere to the regulations such as GDPR and National archive guidelines.
About the author
Fréttaritari