"Charlie",

I suppose in this instance, a pseudonym is acceptable in order to
protect yourself from the powers that be. It is truly unfortunate, but
understandable.

There are a number of thoughts about where Records Management should
live. I would recommend a search of the archives (see link below) for
some of the many spirited discussions that we have had. I think,
however, this it is safe to say that HR is a lousy place to put Records
Management unless you are the file room for HR.  

It is typical for Records Management to be aligned with a legal
department, a shared / administrative services organization (one that
is very broad), or IT (in my case, with the Chief Information Security
Officer, where we see RIM as part of the overall risk mitigation
effort).

What you have to do is examine how you use your time and who your
primary customers are. If you are spending your time on operational
tasks (file and box activities), you will have a difficult argument
that you're really engaged in risk mitigation through policy influence.

You may also want to take a look at Bill Saffady's benchmarking study
that can be obtained from ARMA.
http://www.arma.org/bookstore/productdetail.cfm?ProductID=1193

In lieu of that, use the ARMA directory to find records managers from
similar organizations and find out where they report. That will provide
a fact-based basis for pointing out that Records Management might be
inappropriately placed in an HR service center.

Now having said that, I'd also like to share my impression of what is
happening in your organization. My previous employer was an HR /
Benefits consulting and outsourcing organization. What I saw (and
consider this to be somewhat of a non-scientific survey) is that our
clients would typically transform their HR organizations into services
and policy-making organizations prior to outsourcing the services
organization. In this manner, they would have an exact cost figure for
services and would better be able to calculate the savings if they
outsourced the services. So if that is in the future of your HR
services organization, you're going to have a problem because no HR
outsourcer will have a clue of what to do with a RIM function, unless
it is purely supporting HR filing. And in my experience with 30 or so
clients (mostly large to very large organizations), I never saw a
full-fledged RIM program associated with HR.

It may be time to warm up your resume.



Patrick Cunningham, CRM
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"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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