Lisa:

The strongest argument I had when convincing my management that RM 
training needed to be expanded to all employees annually (we currently 
only have training for new hires) were the comments that Judge Shira 
Scheindlin made during the Q&A at the ARMA Keynote address (it's available 
as a podcast on their website - I've also included the text below).

As one of the leading jurists (if not thee leading jurist) on RM issues, 
her opinions carry a lot of weight.

I hope this helps,


Jason C. Stearns
Assistant Vice President - Records Management
Business Resilience Department 






Here is the text from Judge Scheindlin's Q&A answer:

Begins at 15:35

Question:
Our next question comes form our attendee and it focuses on the need for 
training in an organization and how that relates to established policies 
and the threat of spoliation. 
It says:  We have a corporate policy manual discussing our RM program.  On 
our intranet we publish the retention schedule, a records management 
program manual with guidelines and information on retention and 
destruction of records and electronic files.  Is this sufficient to create 
a safe haven from spoliation provided we have followed our policy in the 
normal course of business?

Begins at 16:12
Answer (Judge Shira Sheindlin)
Well, probably not, for two reasons.  First, as you describe it there is 
nothing in that policy that discusses training.  It is well known that 
employees don?t read handbooks and they don?t read manuals even when there 
is information in there that?s to their benefit.  It?s also necessary to 
require training of all new employees and refresher training for all other 
employees.  And those trainings should be live, not by webcast because 
people can tune out the webcast and do other work, wrongly believing they 
are successfully multitasking.  I know this only to well because I do this 
myself.  But an initial training session by department of all new 
employees and then a semiannual training course might be good ideas. 

The other problem with the policy you just described is the lack of 
monitoring.  A program that does not include a means of checking on 
employee compliance is no policy at all.  Management must develop a system 
to ensure that employees are actually following the designated protocols. 
This can only be accomplished with a compliance-monitoring program, which 
I think is an essential component of a records management policy.





Lisa Shimamura <[log in to unmask]> 
Sent by: Records Management Program <[log in to unmask]>
01/15/2007 06:10 PM
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Records Management Program <[log in to unmask]>


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Subject
Re: Mandatory All Employee Training for Records Management






Thanks, Bruce, Peter, Bill...

I know that mandatory all employee training for RM is a good idea and
recommended as a best practice from most , if not all, RM professionals 
and
industry experts.

At my previous employer, annual training was mandatory for all employees, 
it
was part of the policy. I have spent the last 9 years developing and
implementing mandatory RM training for all company employees similar to 
what
Bruce describes. I was part of the audit and policies group and we were
responsible for development of a web-based course with a test at the end
that enabled us to track employee completion and calculate compliance 
stats,
etc.

I am with a new employer that has never had an RM Program before.  We are
ready to start on the training phase of the project, and I am recommending
that All Employee Awareness Training for RM Policy and procedures be
included as part of the Annual Compliance training that the company is
already doing for Ethics and Information Security/Privacy, etc.  I am
being asked why it should be mandatory for all employees?  If there are
regulations or laws to back this concept up, like there is for sexual
harassment, ethics, and privacy.  I don't think they will do it unless 
there
is a government compliance requirement to do so.

Lisa S. Shimamura, CRM
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