Thanks to everyone who responded to my original posting. I've gotten a lot
of good feedback. I don't necessarily hate paper, but I'll admit I'm not at
all interested in operating an active filing system for HR. The option of
additional documents being boxed separately, indexed and retrievable by scan
date is the most likely possibility. This is how we are handling imaged
documents from another division. In this case there is no organization
within the boxes of additional documents (I know, not a good idea. I'm
trying to change this.), but the documents can be traced to a specific box
by scan date. Fortunately, I have not been asked to find anything in these
boxes yet. When it happens, this will require looking at virtually every
document in the box.

 

Why keep the paper? The retention for personnel files is 70 years from date
of first employment. The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives
states in its Policy Memorandum on Optical Storage of Public Records,
"Public records which are either, (1) scheduled* as permanent or, (2) whose
vital retention status is greater than ten years, must have manual,
eye-readable counterparts." However, agencies desiring to maintain optically
recorded public records in either of the above-named categories without
manual, eye-readable backups may petition the Director, Public Records
Division, for relief from this responsibility. For the sake of brevity, I
won't go into the requirements which must be met in order to destroy the
originals, but it can be done. Unfortunately, I was not consulted in the
selection or implementation of the imaging system or vendor and I doubt very
seriously that HR gave any consideration to the implications for RM during
the process.  This is definitely something I plan to pursue with HR, but
I'll be pleasantly surprised if all of the conditions are being met and that
they will agree that the originals do not need to be retained.

 

In any event, I appreciate everyone's comments and I feel much better
prepared to discuss the subject with HR when the time comes.

 

Roger Hamperian

Records Management Analyst Sr.

L.F.U.C.G. Records Center and Archives

1306 Versailles Road

Suite 180

Lexington, KY 40508

 

859/425-2071

859/425-2073 fax 

 


List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance