We are a 300-ish person law firm (140 attorneys).  Our Records Dept handles HR files much like you mention, a "courier service to off-site storage".  Traditionally at our firm, the Records Dept has not managed admin files until they were ready for storage, however that is changing.  We are now managing active client files and attorney personal/firm productive files from the point of creation; I intend to use our success with those file types to sell our services to the admin portion of our firm.



I mentioned this shift when I started with the firm a little over a year ago and met with much of the same push back you are getting.  However, now I've got an established track-record since we are successfully handling other confidential, protected material (including many with PII, PHI, etc.) on a daily basis; I feel pretty confident that I could sell our ability to manage HR files.  To your question of how to overcome this push back ... My staff went through specific training for handling protected/confidential material (internally created and administered training), and have signed confidentiality agreements ... Which reside in their personnel file, of course!



We have a centralized records center, which could house active HR and other admin files, however active files are best kept near the business unit who uses them to conduct daily activities (unless they are so voluminous that available space becomes a problem).  What I'd like is for our admin departments to start utilizing our classification scheme and creating barcoded files at the point of creation, or at least some point during their active life, since at this point the firm has no idea what exists until it is inactive; and even at that we have traditionally only indexed at the box level for admin files.



To make my already long story short - I don't have a need to physically control HR files during their active life but I do think it would benefit our firm if HR participated in our Information Management program during their files' active stage by utilizing the classification schemes and barcoding capabilities already in use with client and other firm files.



Good luck!



Julie




Julie Colgan
Manager of Records Services
Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
Tel: 404.873.8164
Fax: 404.439.1811
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