Retention Management is Central to Corporate Record and Information Management Policies

Compliance comes in many flavors.  In the US, regulations include Sarbanes-Oxley, 5015.2, HIPAA, and SEC Section 17a.  Central to these many different kinds of compliance is the concept of Retention Management.  Retention management refers to company policies that are created to manage the lifecycle of documents within the corporation.  It includes determining how long to keep a document, how it should be stored, and when and in what way it should be purged or archived.

Retention policies can apply to any type of document.  Recently there has been much discussion and activity in this area for managing historical email and Instant Messaging documents.

The main driver behind document retention is the need to satisfy legal and accounting requirements.  Documents typically need to be retained to show evidence of company policies and activities and also to support the context in which important company decisions were made.  From a business perspective, it is also common for companies to retain important documents as part of an overall company record or corporate memory.   Retention periods vary depending on the kind of document, the industry and individual company policy and exceptions.

Retention disposition policies specify when documents are no longer needed and in what way they are to be disposed.  A certain set of vital company records can be classified as permanent and will never be deleted.  But almost all financial support documents will reach a point where they are no longer required for audit purposes and can be deleted.  Other documents will need to be cleared out at some point because the information that they contain has been either superceded or outdated.  Retaining such documents are burdensome to manage and their existance often only leads to confusion.  If documents are no longer active but are required for audit or reporting purposes, they are typically moved to archive storage areas.

Two international standards from ISO have been created to address Retention Management issues.  These documents provide a clear and useful overview for how a company can create a solid strategy for addressing document retention.  While there are references to Records Management, the documents address retention more from a document management point of view. 

The first of these is ISO 15489-1:2001 (available by Whitefoot Forward as a free download), Information and documentation –Records Management.  Section 9 of 15489-1 in particular has a good discussion about setting retention policies.  The second follow-on ISO document is 15489-2:2001 (another free download) Information and documentation — Records Management — Part 2 Guidelines.

While Retention Management policy applies to both hardcopy and electronic documents, clearly the electronic management of documents can ensure more accurate, timely and consistent handling of document retention policies.  Document and Content management systems such as those offered by Formtek provide an excellent foundation for enabling policies for Retention Management.